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BE ETHICS OF JESUS 



BY 

INRY CHURCHILL KING, D.D., LL.D. 

> i 

PRESIDENT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE 



T$zia fgotfc 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1910 

All rights reserved 









Copyright, 1910, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910. 



J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



(gCU25864? 



PREFACE 

The aim of this book and the writer's concep- 
tion of its task are pretty fully set forth in the 
introductory chapter; and that discussion should 
not be repeated here. It need only be said that 
the method of approach adopted involves a rather 
detailed survey of all the passages in the teaching 
of Jesus that can be regarded as clearly ethical, 
and should itself help to make more objective the 
results of the inquiry as well as more completely 
insure that the teaching itself should be unfolded, 
rather than simply talked about. 

While I have tried to keep constantly in mind 
the ethical aspect of the teaching, as the one prob- 
lem of this book, it should not be forgotten that 
Jesus' teaching is so completely permeated with 
the religious spirit, that it is impossible wholly to 
ignore the religious and still do justice to the 
ethical teaching. Jesus has no dual standpoint, 
corresponding to a sharp separation of the two 
realms of the religious and the ethical. 

As one in a series of New Testament Hand- 
books this volume is, of course, intended to reward 
study but it is most earnestly hoped that that 
intention has not meant that the priceless vitality 
of the ethical teaching of Jesus has escaped in the 



VI PREFACE 

process. A book on the ethics of Jesus that is 
not vital through and through belies its theme. 
I can but hope, therefore, that the book may help 
a little to bring the unity, the sweep, the depth, 
and the inspiration of the ethical teaching of 
Jesus to many readers who do not think of them- 
selves at all as professional students. Jesus was 
interested in life rather than in technical discus- 
sions about life. 

HENRY CHURCHILL KING. 

Oberlin College, 
September, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION I 

Jesus' teaching its own best witness — Extent of lit- 
erature — Aim of the book — Light upon the personality 
of Jesus — Fresh historical interpretation — Psychological 
interpretation — Unfolding the teaching — Criticism of 
the ethics of Jesus — Application of the teaching — The 
entire teaching as a background — The method of a 
composite photograph — Critical position — Trustworthi- 
ness of the ethical teaching as given in the Synoptic Gos- 
pels — Schmiedel's " foundation -pillars " — Burkitt's 
" doubly attested sayings " — Limitation of theme — 
Jesus never separates religion and ethics — Summary of 
the entire teaching of Jesus as given in Luke — Amount 
and permanence of the ethical teaching — Emphasis on 
honesty — Emphasis on love — Trends in the entire 
teaching. 

CHAPTER II 

The Ethical Teaching in Schmiedel's Foundation- 
pillar Passages, and in the Doubly Attested 

Sayings. Criteria 33 

Schmiedel's foundation-pillars — Classification of pas- 
sages — Discussion of passages — Passages bearing on 
Jesus' character as a whole — Passages bearing on Jesus' 
character as a miracle worker — Passages showing in 
what Jesus' greatness consists — Schmiedel's inferences 
— Our own inferences — The inferences logically ar- 
ranged — Conclusion. 

The "doubly attested sayings " — Selection of the ethi- 



Vlll CONTENTS 

PAGE 

cal passages in the doubly attested sayings — The funda- 
mental laws of life involved — Discussion of the passages 
— Summary of inferences — Logical grouping of infer- 
ences — The moral end — Faith in the triumph of the 
good — Love the sum of life — Moral evidence — Fidelity 
to the inner light — Moral means for the inner life of the 
man himself — Unity, integrity, and inwardness of life — 
Earnestness and watchfulness — The laws of habit and 
efficiency — The unity of the life in love — In relation to 
others — The laws of the contagion of the good — Of 
sacrifice — Of self-giving love — Of reverence for the 
person — -.Of priority by service — Of the sharing of all 
goods — The unity of the whole moral conception of 
Jesus — Conclusion. 

CHAPTER III 

The Ethical Teaching in Mark and in the Other 
Common Source of Matthew and Luke. The 
Oldest Sources 87 

The ethical teaching in Q — Selection of passages — 
The temptation replies — Three ethical emphases — The 
contrast with the Pharisaic spirit — The necessity of sym- 
pathetic and tender forgiveness — The sense of the seri- 
ousness of life — The reason for Jesus' position as to the 
Pharisees — Conclusion on Q. 

The ethical teaching in Mark — Outline of the entire 
teaching in Mark — Selection of the ethical passages to 
be discussed — Mark's ethical notes — Jesus' message, 
method, motive, goal, and the revolutionary contrast in 
his teaching — The great paradox — The great command- 
ment — The demand for the childlike qualities — Social 
applications of his teaching — Mark's parables — Sum- 
mary of the ethical teaching in Mark. 

CHAPTER IV 

Estimate of the Ethical Teaching in the Sayings of 

Jesus Peculiar to either Matthew or Luke . .145 
The ethical teaching peculiar to Matthew — Summary 






CONTENTS IX 

PAGE 

of ethical passages selected — Matthew shows both the 
notes of warning and judgment, and the notes of mercy, 
humility, and forgiveness — Comparison of the ethical 
inferences from the ethical teaching peculiar to Matthew, 
with the laws of life derived from the doubly attested 
sayings — Summary of the teaching peculiar to Matthew. 
The peculiar teaching in Luke — Amount and credi- 
bility of this peculiar material — Summary of ethical 
passages chosen — The discussion of Luke's peculiar 
material in two divisions — Consideration of the parables 
of grace with their related sayings — Consideration of 
the parables of warning and the sayings akin to these — 
Parables of grace — Parable of the two debtors — Of the 
Good Samaritan — Of the lost coin — Of the lost son — 
The aspect of judgment and warning — Parables of the 
rich fool — Of the watchful servants — Of the barren fig 
tree — Of the chief seats — Of the Pharisee and the pub- 
lican — Of the rash builder and the rash king — Of extra 
service — Of the unrighteous steward — Summary on the 
parables of grace — Summary on the parables of warning 
— Comparison with doubly attested sayings — Conclu- 
sion. 

CHAPTER V 

The Sermon on the Mount as a Whole . . .191 

Genuineness of the teaching here — Outlines of the 

entire Sermon — The originality of Jesus — The elements 

in that originality — The spiritual discoveries of Jesus in 

the Sermon on the Mount summarized. 

CHAPTER VI 

Jesus' Conception of the Basic Qualities of Life: A 

Study of the Beatitudes 204 

The basic qualities for character, happiness, and influ- 
ence set forth in the Beatitudes — Qualities of character 
involved — Teachable — Penitent — Self-controlled — 
Genuinely earnest in pursuit of the highest — Sympathetic 
with men — Reverent toward men — Promoting love 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

among men — Sacrificing for men — The Beatitudes as 
a progress — The basic qualities of happiness — The 
Beatitudes a reversal of the world's code — Their quali- 
ties as to the supreme conditions of happiness — The 
qualities of the Beatitudes as the natural conditions for 
influence — Summary. 

CHAPTER VII 

The Great Motives to Living in the Sermon on the 

Mount 232 

The ultimate problem — Four great motives used by 
Jesus in the Sermon — The unity of the inner life — The 
inner fulfillment of the law — The motive of God as Father 

— The motive of men as brothers — The motives in the 
divisions of the Sermon — Jesus' putting of the principle 
of the unity of the inner life — Jesus' use of the motive 
of men as brothers — Jesus' use of the motive of God as 
Father — The unity of the four motives in the thought 
of God as Father — Summary of the great motives to liv- 
ing as seen in the Sermon on the Mount — Jesus' use of 
the four great motives as against impurity, falsity, and 
retaliation. 

CHAPTER VIII 

Conclusion 267 

The Sermon on the Mount itself a summary of Jesus' 
teaching — Evidenced in the preceding discussion — Con- 
tains the ethical notes and laws of Schmiedel's passages 
and of the doubly attested sayings — In harmony with 
Q and Mark — And with the peculiar teaching in Matthew 
and Luke — A thoroughgoing unity in his teaching — 
Seen in the inevitable inferences from the thought of 
God as Father — Has Jesus an ethical system? — His 
conception of the highest good — His conception of duty 

— His assumption of conscience and of freedom — Con- 
clusion. 

Bibliography 277 

Index of Subjects 281 

Index of Scripture Texts. 289 



THE WILLIAM BELDEN NOBLE 
LECTURES 

This Lectureship was constituted a perpetual 
foundation in Harvard University in 1898, as a 
memorial to the late William Belden Noble of 
Washington, D.C. (Harvard, 1885). The deed of 
gift provides that the lectures shall be not less 
than six in number, that they shall be delivered 
annually, and, if convenient, in the Phillips Brooks 
House, during the season of Advent. Each lec- 
turer shall have ample notice of his appointment, 
and the publication of each course of lectures is 
required. The purpose of the Lectureship will 
be further seen in the following citation from the 
deed of gift by which it was established : — 

" The object of the founder of the Lectures is to continue 
the mission of William Belden Noble, whose supreme desire 
it was to extend the influence of Jesus as the way, the truth, 
and the life; to make known the meaning of the words of 
Jesus, 1 1 am come that they might have life, and that they 
might have it more abundantly.' In accordance with the 
large interpretation of the Influence of Jesus by the late 
Phillips Brooks, with whose religious teaching he in whose 
memory the Lectures are established and also the founder 
of the Lectures were in deep sympathy, it is intended that 
the scope of the Lectures shall be as wide as the highest in- 
terests of humanity. With this end in view, — the perfection 
of the spiritual man and the consecration by the spirit of 



Xll THE WILLIAM BELDEN NOBLE LECTURES 

Jesus of every department of human character, thought, and 
activity, — the Lectures may include philosophy, literature, 
art, poetry, the natural sciences, political economy, sociology, 
ethics, history both civil and ecclesiastical, as well as theology 
and the more direct interests of the religious life. Beyond 
a sympathy with the purpose of the Lectures, as thus denned, 
no restriction is placed upon the lecturer." 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



THE WILLIAM BELDEN NOBLE LECTURES 
FOR 1909 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

One feels inevitably the hopelessness of trying Jesus' teach- 
to add to the value of the teachings of Jesus by b^witn^s. 
further comment upon them. The comment seems 
so often only to dilute and weaken the teaching 
rather than to strengthen its hold upon the mind. 
To any man able to enter in even small degree 
into the reality of the teaching of Jesus, that 
teaching must always seem its own best witness. 
It is possible to go over many books on the teach- 
ing of Jesus, excellently done though they seem, 
and yet feel curiously unrewarded, when the out- 
come is compared with the results of one's own 
first-hand study of the words of Jesus themselves. 

It is impossible, too, to ignore the fact that the Extent of 
literature upon every aspect of the life and teach- llterature - 
ing of Jesus has immensely increased in recent 
years; and that, with the growth of the depart- 
ment of biblical theology, the last years have seen 
such attention to the teaching of Jesus as has 
never been witnessed before. In the light of all 
this literature, one can well appreciate Burkitt's 
remark, "that the only time when Christians 



2 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

would have cause to be afraid was when the far- 
off figure of Jesus no longer attracted the critic 
and the student ; but that there was no evidence 
that that day was within sight." 1 And yet, at the 
same time, one can hardly be blamed for asking 
himself, somewhat despairingly, Is there any ex- 
cuse for adding another book to this list ? What 
can our discussion do ? 
Light upon First of all, it may be said that it is possible for 
ity Sj^t [t t0 throw some h & ht (quite incidentally, for this 
is in no sense a volume of apologetics) upon ques- 
tions of historicity and credibility ; and it is not a 
small matter that the world should not lose the 
conviction of the reality of any great personality, 
most of all that of Jesus. Now it is not only true 
that general considerations must always weigh 
heavily against the hypercritical judgments of a 
few modern writers, who ask us to believe that 
the character, that is most necessary to under- 
stand the history of the Christian centuries, is 
itself unhistorical ; but it may also be said, that the 
present critical situation may well be considered 
rather reassuring than otherwise. In any case, a 
careful study of the most certain portions of the 
teaching of Jesus must be one of the best and 
surest ways of coming to the life and person of 
Jesus. The man Jesus must stand revealed in 
this teaching with singular decisiveness. 

In the second place, it may be possible for us to 

1 Quoted by Knowling, art. " Criticism," Dictionary of Christ 
and the Gospels, p. 393. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

see a little more clearly what portions of the teach- 
ings of Jesus are most certain, and to realize how 
much we have in these portions that cannot be 
doubted. 

Moreover, for the surest interpretation of any Fresh histori- 
teaching, we must be able to see it in its full his- ^tian 611 * 6 " 
torical setting, and such historical interpretation 
is always a fresh problem, needing ever to be 
faced anew in view of the results of constantly 
advancing research. Here, for example, we must 
take account not only of the general influence of 
the Jewish literature of the time, but particularly 
of its Messianism, and of the religious position of 
the Pharisees. Though all this has far less appli- 
cation to the ethical than to other parts of the 
teaching of Jesus. 

To this historical imagination one must add, as Psychologi- 
well, what may be called a psychological imagina- cal . mter P re - 
tion, to make the teaching real to himself. Here 
the problem especially is to get all possible light 
en Christ's own state of mind at the time of the 
teaching, and so to see how the teaching grew up 
first of all out of his own experience and thought. 

And in all this the attempt must be to keep Unfolding 
close to the teaching itself, to unfold it, rather than the teachin g- 
to write about it. No need is greater than that 
the teaching of Jesus should be allowed to speak 
for itself. One recalls Horton's striking sentence, 
" It is the unhappy delusion of the Church that it 
knows the teaching of Jesus." 1 To similar import 

1 The Teaching of Jesus, p. viii. 



4 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

Mr. Peile says, in his Bampton lectures, "It 
cannot, I think, be questioned that the striking 
contrast between the lives of Christians and the 
rules which they profess to accept is the great re- 
ligious difficulty of the present day." 1 We must, 
therefore, do our utmost to approach the teaching 
in such a way as to allow it to make its own un- 
biased impression. Our single-minded endeavor 
must be to see life through Christ's eyes, to share 
his discernment of its laws. Only then shall we 
be able to bring out the relations of the parts of 
the teaching each to each, and the unity of all. 
Criticism of On the other hand, singularly violent attacks 
oMes^s C . S are being made just now, in some quarters, even 
upon the ethics of Jesus. It is not only that many 
even professedly Christian writers have declared 
that teaching impracticable, always impossible of 
direct application to life ; but that others are in- 
sisting that the ethics of Jesus is always " end- 
ethics," that is, teaching given only in view of an 
almost immediate end of the present world-age, 
and so clearly not of value for ordinary daily life. 
Still others are attributing to Jesus in a most ex- 
traordinary manner ethical judgments, which any 
scientific and sober exegesis must say unhesitat- 
ingly were quite the reverse of his true position. 2 
And, finally, a recent and professedly very modern 
book says, for example, amid a large amount of 
similar assertion, " Luke is especially full of teach- 

1 The Reproach of the Gospel, p. 6. 

2 See art. " Jesus or Christ," Hibbert Journal, January, 1909. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

ings quite as hard for the conscience as the wonder- 
stories of the Bible are difficult for the reason." 1 

It would seem, then, abundantly worth while to Need of 
make a careful objective study of the distinctly °|& tlve 
ethical teaching of Jesus. But this volume at- 
tempts nowhere any direct defense of the teaching 
of Jesus as against such criticisms, nor any direct 
attack upon the assumptions underlying these 
criticisms; except so far as such defense or attack 
is involved in a clear objective understanding of 
Jesus' ethical teaching itself. Though it would not 
be difficult to show, in many cases at least, that the 
criticisms come from failure to follow sound canons 
of literary or historical interpretation, from a curi- 
ously inconsistent mixture of older and newer 
points of view, or from a supposed higher ethical 
viewpoint, that takes all seriousness out of life, is 
sentimentalism pure and simple, justifiable neither 
scientifically nor philosophically. 

It must be regarded, also, as of no small moment Application 
that the student of the teaching of Jesus should ° f a *y n 
try to see that teaching in its application to his 
own time. We are to be doers, not hearers only. 
And if our modern psychological emphasis upon 
doing in order to knowing is at all correct, it must 
be recognized that in this preeminently ethical 
realm we shall only really profit by the teaching, 
and rightly evaluate it, as we honestly attempt its 
application to the life-problems of our own time. 
This does not mean a mere homiletic drawing of 

1 Dole, What we know about Jesus, p. 46 note. 



6 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Limitation 
of theme. 



morals ; for moral teaching can be truly and fully 
seen, only as it is brought home to our own situa- 
tion and to our own problems. We shall only 
appreciate the insight of Jesus when we share it ; 
and we shall not truly share it until we have tried 
to apply it to problems that for ourselves are real 
and pressing?! Just here lies a great part of the 
virtue of Tolstoy's writing upon Christianity. He 
has come into a thorough conviction of certain 
basic principles, as he sees them, in the teaching 
of Jesus, and is trying with all his heart to apply 
them to our own time. To relieve the minds of 
those who conjure with the word "scientific," it 
might be added that this insistence upon the mod- 
ern application of the teaching of Jesus is not less 
scientific, but really more so, because it is the one 
way to genuine insight in the realm of the ethical. 
If the author does not do this, the reader must do 
it for himself, if he is to come to clear convictions. 
No excuses, therefore, need to be made for the 
occasional but deliberate present-day applications 
of the teaching. Probably it is just here that 
there lies the largest part of what we can do in 
making the teaching real. 

Our attempt may find a further justification in 
the strict limitation of its theme. The book is not 
to undertake all the problems of New Testament 
introduction. On the contrary, it aims to build 
directly on what others have done in this field. 
Particularly, it is not its business to cover the 
ground of other books of this series of New Tes- 



INTRODUCTION 7 

tament Handbooks. The very plan of the series 
rather requires strict limitation. Nor is the book 
to deal with all the teaching of Jesus. Two books 
of this series have already touched, one at length 
and another in an important part, upon this teach- 
ing in its entirety. Our discussion must rather be 
confined to the purely ethical teaching, to a spe- 
cific field less frequently covered ; though the gen- 
eral books on the teaching of Jesus and on Christian 
ethics have had not a little to say, at least inciden- 
tally, upon our own theme ; and there are not 
wholly lacking books almost confined to this field. 

In reaching our theme, moreover, it seems wise The entire 
to begin with an analytic statement of the teach- ^kgrou^ 
ing as a whole, as it stands in the Gospels, in 
order to appreciate the Evangelists' point of view, 
and to recognize the relative unity of the entire 
teaching as it has been placed before the disciples 
of Christ through the centuries in the longest of 
the Gospels. We are thus to work from the 
whole to the parts, and not vice versa. 

But it is particularly to be noticed that, in order The method 
to keep the results as objective as possible, the ° s ^ t e° m " 
method of this volume is that of a composite photograph. 
photograph. Against the background of Luke's 
putting of the entire teaching of Jesus, the ethical 
teaching is presented in a series of pictures taken 
from different and carefully chosen points of view, 
superimposed one upon the other. The ethical 
emphases which so result, we may be certain, will 
give us authentic and central points in the ethics 



8 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Summary 
as to aim. 



An individ- 
ual reaction. 



of Jesus. In other words, the volume undertakes 
seven successive studies of the ethical teaching of 
Jesus : two from the points of view of suggested 
but contrasted criteria for that teaching — the 
criterion of the exceptional, in Schmiedel's " foun- 
dation-pillar " passages, and the criterion of the 
recurring, in Burkitt's " doubly attested sayings " ; 
two from the points of view of the admittedly 
oldest sources — Mark, and the other common 
source of Matthew and Luke; two from the 
points of view of material peculiar to Matthew, 
and material peculiar to Luke ; and a concluding 
study of the Sermon on the Mount, as an early, 
authentic, and intentional summary of the teach- 
ing of Jesus, and as furnishing a further test of 
the results reached in the previous studies. 

The justification, then, of our undertaking may 
perhaps be found in its aim to make a direct, first- 
hand, historico-psychological, pragmatic study of 
a strictly limited field, approached by the method 
of the composite photograph ; a method that, if it 
treats the teaching topically at all, will do so at the 
end rather than at the beginning. 

In any case, the theme is of endless significance, 
and it can only be seen in its fullness and richness 
in many individual reflections of it. Any genu- 
inely honest, individual reaction upon the teach- 
ing of Jesus will probably be not without its value 
for others. But if this method is to be adopted, 
the limitations of space demand illustrative rather 
than exhaustive treatment. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Critical Position 

Without attempting any discussion of the synop- 
tic problem, which properly belongs to other vol- 
umes, it may be said that there is, fortunately, an 
increasing consensus of opinion among scholars 
upon that problem, and I may content myself with 
quoting Sanday's recent summary : 1 "I shall as- Sanday on 
sume the facts on which most scholars at the pres- the sources - 
ent time, including Dr. Wright, are substantially 
agreed. I shall assume that there are three main 
sources, or classes of sources, of our present Gos- 
pels : (i) our present St. Mark — the actual Gos- 
pel, not an Urmarcus or older form of the Gospel, 
— which has supplied the outline and broad nar- 
rative of our Lord's public ministry as it is found 
in the other two Gospels ; (2) a collection consist- 
ing for the most part of discourses, which an 
ancient tradition would lead us to think was the 
work of St. Matthew, and which was drawn upon 
by both the first Evangelist and St. Luke, but not 
or in a much less degree by St. Mark ; we may 
follow the example of many scholars at the present 
time by using for this document the symbol Q ; 
(3) certain special material peculiar to the First 
Gospel and St. Luke, and amounting in the latter 

1 Expository Times, December, 1908, p. 105; see also his The 
Life of Christ in Recent Research. Cf. Stanton, art. " Gospels," 
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible ; White, art. " Gospels," Diction- 
ary of Christ and the Gospels ; Knowling, art. " Criticism," D. C. 
G.; Bacon, art. " Logia," D. C. G. ; Garvie, Studies in the Inner 
Life offesus, the critical introduction. 



IO 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Reconstruc- 
tions of Q. 



Trustwor- 
thiness of 
the ethical 
teaching as 
given in the 
Synoptic 
Gospels. 



Gospel, at what is perhaps a maximum reckoning, 
to nearly five hundred verses." 1 

Various attempts to reconstruct the document Q 
have been made by Wendt, Resch, A. Wright, 
Reville, Wernle, Hawkins, Wellhausen (1905), 
Harnack (1907), and B. Weiss (1908). 2 With the 
exception of Weiss', Harnack's reconstruction is 
the most recent, and may also probably be re- 
garded as the fruit of the most thoroughgoing 
study ; and as Weiss differs from most scholars in 
believing that Mark also made considerable use of 
Q, our study will be based upon Harnack's recon- 
struction, in his The Sayings of Jesus. 

It may also be said that there is general agreement 
among scholars regarding the trustworthiness of 
the Synoptic Gospels as to no small part of the 
teaching of Jesus. While this general agreement 
does not by any means cover all topics and details, 
nor exclude the admission of editorial additions, it 
is reassuring as to the basis of our ethical studies. 
Thus, even so radical a critic as Schmiedel, after 
discussing his "foundation-pillars," says: 3 "We 
must therefore work upon the principle that, to- 
gether with the 'foundation-pillars,' and as a re- 

1 It is, of course, not forgotten that the sources of these sources, 
especially of Mark, may be also sought, as in some of the most re- 
cent inquiries. See Menzies, " Survey of Recent Literature on the 
Synoptic Gospels," Review of Theology and Philosophy, June, and 
July, 1909. 

2 Cf. Bacon, art. " Logia," D. C. G. ; Moffatt, The Historical 
New Testament, pp. 641 ff. 

3 Jesus in Modem Criticism, p. 27. 



INTRODUCTION 1 1 

suit of them, everything in the first three Gospels 
deserves belief which would tend to establish Jesus' 
greatness, provided that it harmonizes with the 
picture produced by the 'foundation-pillars,' and 
in other respects does not raise suspicion. And 
this gives us nothing less than pretty well the whole 
bulk of Jesus' teaching, in so far as its object is to 
explain in a purely religious and ethical way what 
God requires of man, and wherein man receives 
comfort and consolation from God." The limitation 
to a certain kind of teaching should here be noted. 1 
So too, Harnack, in discussing the historical value of 
Q, says: "Our knowledge of the teaching and the 
history of our Lord, in their main features at least, 
thus depends upon two authorities [Mark and Q] 
independent of one another, yet composed at nearly 
the same time. Where they agree their testimony 
is strong, and they agree often and on important 
points. On the rock of their united testimony, the 

1 As to making these " foundation-pillars " sole criterion for a 
life of Jesus, I think Sanday's criticism holds : " The position that 
he takes up is the paradoxical one of insisting upon certain passages 
because they seem to run counter to the main tenor of Christian 
tradition, but at the same time practically ignoring this main tenor, 
which is really that which gives them their value. In other words, 
he builds on the exceptions, and ignores the rule to which they are 
exceptions. Is it not a much fairer way of proceeding to treat the 
passages of which we have been speaking as so much striking evi- 
dence of the generally high historical character of the documents 
in which they occur ? " {Expository Times, December, 1908, p. 1 10.) 
But this does not affect our discussion of the ethical teaching, nor 
the use of Schmiedel's passages as one criterion for that ethical 
teaching. 



12 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

assault of destructive critical views, however neces- 
sary these are to easily self-satisfied research, will 
ever be shattered to pieces." 1 Ramsay is even in- 
clined to believe that Q "was written while Christ 
was still living," and Salmon takes a similar view. 2 
While these views of Ramsay and Salmon are prob- 
ably, as Sanday thinks, somewhat optimistic, Allen, 
Wright, Plummer, Bacon, Burkitt, Loisy, Jiilicher, 
Wernle, and many others, may all be quoted as 
affirming the general trustworthiness of the Synop- 
tic Gospels as to the simpler ethical and religious 
teaching of Jesus. 3 This sentence, typical of all, 
may be quoted from Wernle, speaking of Q : " On 
the whole, the historical value of these discourses 
is very high, higher than that of anything else; to- 
gether with the words of the Lord in Mark, they 
give us our truest insight into the heart of the Gos- 
pel." And again, " The chief thing is how Jesus 
looked upon God, upon the world, upon mankind ; 
and how he answered the question of questions, — 
what really matters before God, what is religion. 
And this we can know; we can see it in bright 
daylight." 4 

In our examination of this teaching, we may 

1 The Sayings of Jesus, p. 249. 

2 Cf. Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 172. 
s Cf.,e.g., Allen, The International Critical Commentary, "St. 

Matthew," pp. 309 ff ; Wernle, Sources of our Knowledge of the Life 
of Jesus, pp. 99 ff, 129, 131, 152; Jiilicher, An Introduction to the 
New Testament, § 29, " The historical value of the Synoptic Gos- 
pels," pp. 37!-37 2 , 373, 374- 

4 Op. cit., pp. 138-139, and 160-161. 



INTRODUCTION 1 3 

well begin with what is most certain, indeed prac- 
tically undisputed, — Schmiedel's " foundation-pil- 
lars," and " the doubly attested sayings " of Burkitt. 

Schmiedel selects certain specific passages which Schmiedel's 
he says must be regarded as " not open to ques- Jj^>? tKm " 
tion." Concerning these passages, he says : 1 "I 
select nine such passages, and in order to empha- 
size their importance, give them a special name ; 
I call them the foundation-pillars of a really sci- 
entific life of Jesus. Now the important point is 
that they are chosen on the same principles which 
guide every critical historian in extra-theological 
fields. When we make our first acquaintance 
with a historical person in a book which is 
throughout influenced by a feeling of worship for 
its hero, as the Gospels are by a feeling of worship 
for Jesus, in the first rank of credibility we place 
those passages of the book which really run 
counter to this feeling; for we realize that, the 
writer's sentiments being what they were, such 
passages cannot have been invented by the author 
of the book ; nor would they have been taken from 
the records at his service if their absolute truth- 
fulness had not forced itself upon him." With 
these nine passages he couples three others, which 
he says 2 " any impartial inquirer would admit . . . 
are of the same truthful nature." In starting with 
these twelve passages, which Schmiedel thinks that 
no critical historian could question, for our own 
study, it is of course to be borne in mind that we 

1 Jesus in Modern Criticism, p. 15. 2 Op. cit., p. 25. 



14 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

are using them not as he does, as a beginning of 
a scientific life of Jesus, but solely for disclosure 
of the ethical teaching of Jesus. 

With these "foundation-pillars" of Schmiedel 
may well be grouped the doubly attested sayings 
collected by Burkitt in his book, The Gospel History 
and Its Transmission. 
Burkitt's By the doubly attested sayings, Burkitt does not 

attested rnean simply those which appear in any two of the 

sayings. Synoptics. As he says, " To those who hold that 

Matthew and Luke actually used our Mark and 
another document besides, it is evident that the 
consensus of all three Synoptics resolves itself into 
the single witness of Mark, and the consensus of 
Matthew and Luke is in many cases only to be 
regarded as the single witness of the lost docu- 
ment (Q)." He holds therefore that "the only 
real double attestation is to be found in those few 
passages, mostly short, striking sayings, which ap- 
pear to have found a place in the common source 
of Matthew and Luke (Q) as well as in Mark." 1 
He adds later that we need "a kind of starting- 
point for the consideration of our Lord's doctrine, 
some external test that will give us a general as- 
surance that the Saying we have before us is 
really from him, and is not the half-conscious 
product of one school of his followers. Where 
shall we find such a test ? It appeared to me that 
the starting-point we require may be found in those 
Sayings which have a real double attestation. 

1 Op. cit., pp. 132-133. 



INTRODUCTION 1 5 

The main documents out of which the Synoptic 
Gospels are compiled are (i) the Gospel of Mark, 
and (2) the lost common origin of thenon-Markan 
portions of Matthew and Luke, i.e., the source 
called Q. Where Q and Mark appear to report the 
same Saying, we have the nearest approach that 
we can hope to get to the common tradition of the 
earliest Christian society about Our Lord's words. 
What we glean in this way will indicate the general 
impression his teaching made upon his disciples." 1 
Burkitt believes that we can be sure of thirty such 
doubly attested sayings. 

These foundation-pillar passages of Schmiedel, Ground to 
and Burkitt's list of the doubly attested sayings, be covere(L 
give us a starting-point for the study of the teach- 
ing of Jesus which can hardly be questioned ; and 
in some important respects furnish at the same 
time criteria for the remaining study — the criteria 
of the exceptional and of the recurring. Where 
these contrasted criteria agree in ethical emphasis, 
the result should be indubitable. As already sug- 
gested, the study of these passages would naturally 
be followed by a study of the teaching in the oldest 
sources: Mark, and Q, where Harnack's recon- 
struction of the latter document will be taken as 
basis. An estimate of the ethical teaching of Jesus 
peculiar to either Matthew or Luke, and a special 
illustrative study of the Sermon on the Mount, will 
complete our survey. That is, our study will be 
confined to the Synoptics, and will try to build 

1 Op. cit., p. 147. 



i6 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Exclusion 
of narrative. 



Other 
exclusions. 



Jesus never 
separates 
religion 
and ethics. 



there continuously upon the assured results of 
criticism. 

Limitation of Theme 

The necessarily strict limitation of our theme 
will require the exclusion of any detailed considera- 
tion of the narrative portions of the Gospels, ex- 
cept so far as this may be necessary to make clear 
the teaching, though the historical background, of 
course, must be always in mind. 

The restriction to the ethical teaching of Jesus 
means, too, that any large consideration of the 
religious teaching is necessarily shut out, as well 
as any treatment of the doctrine of the person of 
Christ, and also all consideration of the eschato- 
logical teaching. These exclusions of themselves 
would largely exclude John, which, also, as a less 
primary source, is left out of account. 1 

And yet it should be made perfectly clear that 
no sharp line is to be drawn, or can be drawn, be- 
tween the ethical and the religious, either in fact 
or in the teaching of Jesus. If one is to say, with 
Professor Palmer, that ethics is " a criticism of the 
formation, maintenance, and comparative worth of 
human customs," then certainly, from the point of 
view of Jesus, the ethical could not be shut off 
from the religious. To believe in ethical aims and 
laws, as involved in the very constitution of our 
beings, and as possible of any kind of fulfillment in 

But see summary of ethical teaching in John, in Strong, art. 
" Ethics," H. D. B., p. 784. 






INTRODUCTION 1 7 

the world, is itself implicitly and logically a faith 
essentially religious. For it implies the friendli- 
ness of the universe to such an ethical aim. 1 Cer- 
tainly to the thought of Jesus, the ethical and re- 
ligious are inextricably interwoven. One cannot do 
justice to his standpoint without freely admitting, 
with J. Weiss, 2 that " we cannot in strictness speak 
of the ethics of Jesus at all, . . . but we may see 
how a great personality creates a moral standard by 
what he does and suffers, and how he illustrates it in 
his words." 3 "We speak accurately of ethics or 
natural science only when we regard the conduct of 
men in their mutual relations as something by itself, 
abstracted from religious feeling and action, . . . 
and such an independent position of ethics ... is 
simply beside the mark in the case of Jesus." 4 
Let it be, therefore, clearly and emphatically said 
from the start that, in speaking of the ethics of 
Jesus, we never mean to imply that Jesus him- 
self separates the ethical problem from the re- 
ligious. The line we here draw is an arbitrary 
line of our own, though it is not without value to 
draw it. In drawing the line in these studies, we 
are simply to ask what Jesus conceived to be the 
fundamental laws of human life, in the relation of 
man to man, setting aside, except incidentally, all 
discussion of the relation of man to God. 

1 Cf. Mackenzie, A Manual of Ethics, pp. 30, 317. 

2 Art. " Ethics," D. C. G. 

3 Cf. Contentio Veritatis, The Teaching of Christ, pp. 105 ff., 116- 
121, I48-I49, 165-166. 

*Cf. Gilbert, The Revelation of Jesus, p. 131. 
c 



1 8 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

The ethical But even if one makes no attempt to draw so 

t^eachilT- shar P a line ' a faithful stud Y of the teaching of 
of Jesus. J Jesus cannot help impressing the student with 
the fact that a surprisingly large proportion of the 
teaching of Jesus is simply and distinctly ethical, 
having only the constant religious implication in 
the background, that any fundamental law of 
human life must be at the same time the will of 
God. And his expressly religious teaching, more- 
over, is, in very large part, of the simplest possible 
sort, that connects itself most directly with funda- 
mental ethical assumptions. We are certain, there- 
fore, to find a fruitful and large field of study in 
the ethical teaching, and it is a study that will 
have very much to contribute to what has proved 
to be through the generations the abiding picture 
of Jesus. 1 

Summary of the Entire Teaching of Jesus 

The religious We shall best estimate the ethical teaching of 
Tth^thT l J esus as gathered from the earliest sources, criti- 
teaching of cally determined, when we see it against the back- 
jesus. ground of the entire teaching as set forth in 

Matthew or Luke. We may the more appro- 
priately attempt such a brief survey of the whole, 
not only because of the general advantage of 
working from the whole to the parts rather than 
simply from the parts to the whole, but also be- 

*Cf. Roberts, art. "Gospel," D. C. G., p. 661 : " Much of the 
teaching of Jesus could not be directly classed under the ' Gospel ' 
as sketched above ; it was ethical teaching." 



INTRODUCTION 19 

cause all the elements of the teaching of Jesus do 
necessarily affect the ethical teaching. It is well 
to see, for example, that religious teaching, in the 
thought of Jesus, is always involved in what may 
seem to be the plainest ethical principles, because 
every duty which he recognizes is felt by him to 
be the will of God, and the will of God always some 
duty. The situation in the mind of Jesus, I sup- 
pose, is in this respect precisely like that of every 
religious man of the modern time, who, if he be- 
lieves in God at all as his Creator, must conceive 
of the fundamental laws of his own nature as at 
the same time expressions of the will of the crea- 
tive God. 

So, too, our conception of the person of Christ The life of 
is closely related to our view of his ethics. And J esus as . 

J illustrating 

while primarily we shall have nothing to do with and reaiiz- 
his life, it must still be recognized that in the ex- in § his 
ample of Jesus, for instance, we have the best pos- 
sible illustration of the translation of his principles 
into life, and we cannot wholly ignore the impres- 
sion made by the spirit of his life in the interpre- 
tation of his teaching. 1 And so far as we find our 
highest ideal embodied in him, he becomes for us, 
as even John Stuart Mill could feel, a kind of per- 
sonalized conscience. Moreover, no abstract state- 
ment of ethical principles can possibly influence 
life as the personal incarnation of those principles 
does ; and the influence of the life of Jesus must 

1 Cf. Horton, The Teaching of Jesus, pp. 274 ff.; Ross, The 
Teaching of 'Jesus, p. 119; and many others. 



20 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Ethical 
bearing of 
the eschato- 
logical. 



Why Luke 
is chosen. 



doubtless be conceived as far more potent, even, 
than his teaching. And if the greatest means to 
the true life we know is personal association with 
the high and noble, then it need not seem strange 
that love for Christ as a person has, as a matter of 
fact, proved the mightiest of historical motives to 
noble living. 1 

Once more, it is plain that even the strict es- 
chatological teaching of Jesus may have a direct 
ethical bearing in its implied emphasis on the 
worth of men. 

As it seems fairly clear that Matthew is inclined 
to group his material in large sections, topically, 
and as the most important of these sections, the 
so-called Sermon on the Mount, will be the subject 
of special study later, we may perhaps best use 
Luke for our summary of the entire teaching of 
Jesus. 

Having reference, then, solely to the teaching, 



1 Cf. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, pp. 109 ff : "We must go by 
the eternally ordained path of love to him who is the revelation of 
eternal Love, — a Person, — and suffer his love to charm us into a 
kindred love; we must lay our hearts close beside his, that they 
may learn to beat with the same motion; our wills near his, that 
they may fall into its harmony," p. 127. Cf. also Bushnell, Ser- 
mons for the New Life, pp. 127 ff. This sentence illustrates his 
thought, " Follow without question the impulse of love to Christ's 
own person; for this, when really fall and sovereign, will put you 
along easily in a kind of infallible way, and make your conduct 
chime, as it were, naturally with all God's future, even when that 
future is unknown ; untying the most difficult questions of casuistry 
without so much as a question raised." Cf. also Charles E. Jeffer- 
son's The Character of Jesus, and Stalker's Imago Christi. 



INTRODUCTION 21 

not to the narratives of the Gospel, the teaching Outline of 
of Jesus in Luke may perhaps be compactly in- ^cnh^of 
dicated in the following outline : — Jesus in 

Luke. 
I. The great characteristics of his ministry (illustrated in 
the rest of the book). 4 : 16-6 : 49. 

A. His own chosen view of his ministry. 4 : 16-30 ; (cf. 

7 : 18-23). A gospel of joy, of hope, of liberty, of 
health for body, mind, and spirit, of universal grace. 
4: 18, 25-27. Cf. chapters 9 and 10. 

B. His note of authority. 4:31-44. (Cf. 5:33-39; 

10 : 17-24 ; 19 : 28-21 : 36 ; especially 4 : 32, 35, 36, 
39, 41 ; 5 : 13 ; 6:5, 20, 27, and many other pas- 
sages.) 

C. The motive of his ministry. 5 : 30-32. (Cf. 7 : 40- 

50; 9:1-6; 10:1-16; and ch. 15.) "I am not 
come to call the righteous but sinners to repent- 
ance." 

D. The revolutionary character of his teaching. 5 : 33- 

6: 11. 

1. As to fasting. 5 : 33-39. 

2. As to the law of the Sabbath. 6 : 1-1 1. 

E. The qualities of disciples, and the fundamental prin- 

ciples of the Kingdom. 6 : 20-49. Cf. divisions 
III, V, and VII. Luke's version of the Sermon on 
the Mount ; illustrated throughout the rest of the 
Gospel. 

1. A new and revolutionary standard of happiness. 

6 : 20-26. 

2. The characteristics of the true righteousness. 

6:27-49. 

1) Universal love the one great ruling principle. 

vv. 27-36. (Cf. 5:30-32.) 

2) The sin and folly of the judging attitude, w. 

37-45- (Cf. 18:9-14.) 

3) Demand for fruit in life. vv. 46-49. (Cf. 

vv. 43-45, and ch. 14.) 



22 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

This section means that love forbids the judging 
attitude, and requires concrete expression in life. 
Jesus is here giving a great, relatively new, ethical 
emphasis in religion. 

The whole of the first great division of Jesus' teach- 
ing, as given in Luke, may be thus summed 
up: (i) good tidings; (2) authoritatively given; 
(3) born of love ; (4) bursting the bonds of much 
previous religion; and (5) calling for the new 
righteousness of universal love in its votaries. 
II. The varied response. 7 : 1S-8 : 21. 

A. How Jesus meets the growing distrust of a previous 

warm friend. 7 : 18-35. 

B. How Jesus meets the misgivings and misconstruction 

of a broader Pharisee. 7 : 36-50. A sympathetic, 
forgiving, redeeming love, as over against a hard, 
unsympathetic, separating judgment. Cf. ch. 15. 

C. In general, results depend on hearer. 8 : 4-21. 

1. Parable of the sower — reception given the seed. 

vv. 4-15. 

2. Parable of the lamp — " Take heed how ye hear." 

vv. 16-18. 

3. " My mother and my brethren " — " hear and do." 

vv. 19-21. 
Division II may be summed up in saying that Christ 
meets all with the one great message of seeking, self- 
giving love; what reception that message will get de- 
pends on the man himself. 
III. Jesus' method the leaven of the disciple of the right quali- 
ties. 9 : 1— 1 1 : 13. 

A. The mission of the Twelve, and their charge. 9*. 1-6. 

B. The qualities of discipleship required. 9 : 18-62. 

1. The one call of self-sacrificing love for master and 

disciples alike, vv. 18-27. (Cf. vv. 44-45.) 

2. " The greatest." vv. 46-48. 

3. Tolerance — " Forbid him not." vv. 49-50. 

4. Counting the cost. vv. 57-62. 



INTRODUCTION 23 

Thus, the disciple will be self-sacrificing, humble, 
tolerant, and heroic in the love he manifests. 

C. The still wider mission of the Seventy, and their 

charge. 10 : 1-16. 

D. The qualities of discipleship . 10 : 17-11 : 13. 

1 . Joy of discipleship. 10 : 17-24. 

2. True neighborliness. 10:25-37. Love concretely 

illustrated in the parable of the Good Samari- 
tan. A rebuke of narrow prejudice at every 
point, 

3. Underestimating spiritual opportunity. 10:38-42. 

(Note especially vv. 41-42.) 

4. Exhortation to prayer. 11:1-13. 

1) The disciples 1 prayer, expressing the very 

spirit of discipleship. vv. 1-4. 

2) "Ask; seek; knock." vv. 5-13. 

There is, thus, here asked from the disciple : love 
born of the love of God in Christ, prizing its mean- 
ing, practically shown, and depending on God. 
The disciple is to live a joyful, neighborly, Christ- 
like, prayerful life. 
IV. The deepening conflict with the Pharisaic forces. 11:14- 
16:31. 
Introductory. Throughout this central section, Jesus 
is developing his own positive teaching, as set over 
against the prevailing religious spirit of his time. 
The whole section is probably primarily directed to 
the training of the Twelve, to bringing them into 
his own spirit and thought, and guarding them 
against the insidious, ever present, ever corrupting 
Pharisaic spirit. It is a solemn task which Jesus 
so sets himself; the whole survival of true religion 
seems to him to be at stake. This whole section 
(chs. 11-16), like chapter 11 in particular, may be re- 
garded as a study in moral blindness ; and like chap- 
ter 12, as giving motives against the Pharisaic spirit; 
the whole section, too, might well be considered, 



24 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

like chapter 13, as warning against the Pharisaic 
spirit ; though there is some propriety in giving these 
special titles to the chapters named. 

A. A study in moral blindness. 1 1 : 14-52. 

1. The moral blindness of the Pharisees reveals itself 

in the ascription of good to evil ; they have 
trifled with their own moral instincts, vv. 14-23. 

2. It involves satisfaction with mere emptiness of 

soul. vv. 24-26. 

3. It necessarily falls back upon tl sign seeking," 

rather than response to the moral and spiritual 
appeal. It involves rejection of the highest, 
vv. 29-32. 

4. All this grows directly out of a self-perverted 

spiritual vision, vv. 33-36. 

5. And this moral blindness is illustrated in 

1) valuing the outer rather than the inner, w. 

37-41 ; 

2) valuing the petty rather than the great, w. 

42-44; 

3) valuing the " hedge of the law " rather than 

the law, vv. 45-52. 
As over against these characteristics of the Pharisaic 
spirit, the disciple must be true, positive, desiring 
the real, seeing straight. 

B. Motives against the Pharisaic spirit; the enemies of 

life. Ch. 12. 
Introductory. In a peculiar degree, this chapter 
contains a multiplication of motives for the right- 
eous life, and deals prevailingly with the moral as- 
pect of the relation to God. 

1. Motives against hypocrisy, vv. 1-12. 

2. Motives against covetousness. vv. 13-21. 

3. Motives against anxiety, vv. 22-34. 

4. Motives against theungirt life. vv. 35-53. 

5. Motives against lack of moral insight, vv. 54-59. 
As over against these characteristics of the Pharisaic 



INTRODUCTION 2$ 

i 

spirit, the disciple of Christ must be absolutely 
honest, unselfish, trusting in God, vigilantly watch- 
ful, seeing the true. 

C. Continued warning against the Pharisaic spirit. 

Ch. 13. 

1. Against uncharitable judgment of others on ac- 

count of calamities ; and against forgetting the 
absolute need of life in the individual, vv. 1-5. 

2. Against fruitlessness, — mere harmlessness of 

life. vv. 6-9. 

3. Against deadness to mercy, exalting sacrifice 

above mercy in the legalistic spirit; misread- 
ing God himself, and so all life. vv. 10-17. 

4. Against a small and petty view of the Kingdom. 

vv. 18-21. 

5. Against lack of earnestness — striving to the end. 

vv. 22-30. 

6. Against the desolateness of the life that is blind 

to the messengers of God. vv. 31-35. 
As over against these characteristics of the Pharisaic 
spirit, the disciple must be charitable in his judg- 
ment, have life in himself, be fruitful, vitally merci- 
ful, have faith in the greatness of the plans of God, 
be consistently earnest, awake to the message of 
God. 

D. The Kingdom for all who will have it ; or, life for 

all who will sow to life. Ch. 14. 

1. Mercy, not legalism, vv. 1-6. 

2. The true measure of a man is not sitting in the 

chief seats, but worthiness to sit in them ; not 
self-exaltation, but real humility, vv. 7-11. 

3. The great test is really unselfish service ; u not 

for recompense." vv. 12-14. 

4. Not height of natural privilege, but response, 

insures the great values of the Kingdom. 
vv. 15-24. 

5. The one vital element of discipleship is willing- 



26 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

ness to follow Jesus in the sacrificial, self-giving 

spirit, vv. 25-35. 
As over against these elements of failure in Pharisa- 
ism, Jesus asks that his disciples should be merci- 
ful in spirit, genuinely humble, unselfishly serving, 
deeply caring for the Kingdom, self-sacrificing. 
The salt of self-sacrifice can alone give savor to 
life. 

E. The seeking, suffering love of God. Ch. 15. 

This chapter contains the very heart of the teaching 
of Jesus, and clearly involves his great convictions 
that : — 

1. God is Father, and therefore cares, seeks, rejoices 

in the return of his child, and grieves over his 
wandering. 

2. Man is son beloved, made for God and associa- 

tion with him. 

3. Sin is the unfilial attitude toward God, going 

away from the Father. 

4. Repentance is coming to oneself, and this is to 

come back to God. 

5. Redemption is God's seeking, forgiving, suffering 

love, winning back the son into the filial life 

with the Father. 
Here the spirit of the disciple is represented as being 
simply that of the true child of God, and ready to 
show, in the sharing of the Father's life, the same 
spirit which the Father shows. 

F. The law of consequences in the moral life, especially 

as illustrated in the love and use of money. Ch. 16. 

1 . The true use of riches ; or, foresight in the spirit- 

ual life. vv. 1— 13. 

2. Christ's answer to the Pharisaic scoffing ; the law 

of consequences, vv. 14-18. 

3. No way of escaping the consequences of the 

selfish abuse of riches, even in the future life. 
vv. 19-31. 









INTRODUCTION 2? 

As contrasted with this spirit, the demand here made 
upon the disciple of Christ is that he should show 
foresight in the spiritual life, wisely using his riches, 
act ever in view of the law of the harvest, and use 
unselfishly all means committed to him. 
V. The more direct training of the Twelve : the spirit 
required in the Disciple. 17 : 1-19 : 27. 

A. Patience. Ch. 17. 

1 . Patient care not to stumble even the least, vv. 

1-2. 

2. The spirit of patient and tender forgiveness. 

vv. 3-4. 

3. The power of even a little genuine faith, vv. 

5-6. 

4. The spirit of patient and meek humility in service. 

vv. 7-10. 

5. The duty and beauty of expressed gratitude. 

vv. 11-19. 

6. Patient faith in the invisible Kingdom, vv. 

20-21. 

7. Readiness to meet the times of crisis : patient 

endurance to the end. vv. 22-37. 

B. Chapter 18. 

1. Persistent and humbly penitent in prayer. 

vv. 1-14. 

2. Valuing the childlike spirit, vv. 15-17. 

3. Withstanding the peril of riches, — the peril of 

the lower attainment, vv. 18-30. 

4. Readiness to follow a suffering Lord, v v. 31-34. 

C. Fidelity in the trusts of the Kingdom. 19: 11-27. 
VI . Pressing his claims at the center of power. 1 9 : 28-2 1 : 36. 

A. The claim of Messiahship — of universal and eternal 

significance, in the triumphal entry, and in the 
lamentation over Jerusalem. 19 : 28-46. 

B. Controversy with the national leaders. 20 : 1-21 14. 

1. As to his authority. 20 : 1-8. 

2. A parable of judgment on the nation. 20 : 9-18. 



28 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

3. The tribute to Caesar. 20: 19-26. 

4. As to the resurrection. 20 : 27-40. 

5. Christ as David's son. 20 : 41-44. 

6. Warning against the scribes. 20 : 45-47. 

7. The contrast of the poor widow. 21 : 1-4. 

C. The eschatological discourse ; Christ's claim to world 

significance. 21 : 5-36. 
All this means that the disciple will recognize Christ's 
universal and eternal significance, his moral and spirit- 
ual lordship. 
VII. Last Counsels to the disciples. 

A. The new conditions. 22 : 14-38. 

1. The new covenant, vv. 14-23. 

2. Rank in the new Kingdom, vv. 24-30. 

3. Peter's sifting, vv. 31-34. 

4. Changed conditions to be faced, vv. 35-38. 

B. Suffering and glory and universal mission. 24 : 13-49. 
The Lord of seeking, suffering love is the Lord of 

glory and the Lord of all. 



Amount and Permanence of the Ethical Teaching 

Even this very rapid survey of the entire teach- 
ing of Jesus, just as we find it in the longest of 
the Gospels, furnishes the best background for our 
special study of the ethical teaching of Jesus, and 
serves at the same time to bring out two things 
clearly: (1) the very large proportion of his teach- 
ing that deals with the simplest principles of the 
ethical and religious life; and (2) the recurrence 
of certain great emphases in his teaching. 

One is reminded of Harnack's words in his 
discussion of Q : " It is astonishing that at a time 
when St. Paul was actively engaged in his mission, 



INTRODUCTION 29 

and when the problem of apologetics and the con- Hamack 
troversy concerning the law were burning ques- ^ the ur xtt 
tions, the teaching of Our Lord should have been ethical 
still so clearly and distinctly preserved in the mem- emp asis ' 
ory of Christians in the simple force of its es- 
sentially ethical character." 1 To similar import 
Burkitt says : " The evangelists are not mechanical 
chroniclers ; they are not afraid to treat the ma- 
terial before them with great literary freedom, and 
here and there we actually see unhistorical legends 
growing as it were before our eyes. Under these 
circumstances, the real miracle, which only escapes 
our notice because it is so familiar, is the irresist- 
ible vitality of the ethical teaching of the Gospel." 2 

As to the repeated emphases in the teaching The 
of Jesus, there is especially to be noted the vital, ^ e ^ e S g S 
concrete characterization of the life of the dis- 
ciple of Jesus, as it comes out in the various sec- 
tions of Luke. Two emphases recur again and 
again in this characterization of the true disciple : 
the emphasis on the need of absolute truth and 
honesty in his disciples, and the emphasis on the \ 
essential need of a genuine, self-giving love. 

On the one hand, many other points in Jesus' Emphasis 
teaching are seen to connect themselves at once on onesty * 
with his repeated emphasis on the need of abso- 
lute truth and honesty in his disciples. If the dis- 
ciple is absolutely true and honest (11:14-23; 
12 : 1-12), he will desire the real (11 : 29-32); he 

1 The Sayings of Jesus, p. 209. 

2 The Gospel History and Its Transmission, p. 27. 



30 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Emphasis 
on love. 



Trends in 
the entire 
teaching. 



will be able to see straight (i i : 33-36 ; 12 : 54-59) ; 
he will be vigilantly watchful (12 : 35-53), persist- 
ently earnest (13:22-30), and positively fruitful 
(13 16-9; cf. n : 24-26). And in this cooperation 
with the purposes of God, he will have a grow- 
ing faith in the greatness of the plans of God 
(13:18-21), and not doubt the presence of law in 
his moral and spiritual life (chs. 12, 14, and 16). 

On the other hand, the true love, too, which 
Jesus calls for from his disciples, is fully charac- 
terized in the teaching in Luke. It will be a love 
for all (6 : 27-36), unjudging (6 : 37-45), practically 
fruitful (6 : 46-49), tenderly compassionate and 
forgiving (7 : 36-50), humble (9 : 46-48 ; 14 : 7-1 1), 
and tolerant (9 : 49-50), heroic in its self-sacrifice 
(9:18-27, 57-62), vitally merciful (10:25-37; cf. 
13:10-17, and 14:1-6), using all means unself- 
ishly (12:13-21; 14:12-14; 16:1-31), faithful 
and watchful in its trusts (14:15-24; 16:1-13; 
19:11-27), absolutely genuine in its self-giving 
(14:25-35 ; ch. 15; 18:31-34). This loving life, 
too, it should be noted, is thought of everywhere 
as the natural response to the love of God him- 
self. And, moreover, the great method of the new 
Kingdom is seen to be the personal association of 
the loving life. 

Finally, if we are to see the strictly ethical 
teaching of Jesus in its proper relations to the 
rest of his teaching, certain great trends and in- 
ferences from this survey of his entire teaching 
should be noted. 



INTRODUCTION 3 1 

First, there is here brought out the revolution- The teach- 
ary character of the religion of Jesus. This is seen J^2 volu " 
in all the great divisions of the teaching of Jesus 
in Luke ; but the disciples were slow to recognize 
the fact ; and this has produced, as Scott has 
pointed out, a progressive apologetic for Chris- 
tianity, even within the New Testament. 1 

In the second place, the teaching of Jesus, as Jesus' 
given in Luke, seems to set forth the absoluteness c aims * 
of his own claims. This is also to be seen in prac- 
tically every great section in Luke's version of the 
teaching of Jesus. 2 

In the third place, while the conception never The 
occurs in form, it is the plain implication that the j b ^|^ 
religion of Christ must be the absolute religion, 
because he brings the culmination of all that re- 
ligion could ever bring, putting men finally into 
filial relation with God as Father. (Cf. chs. 7, 10, 
12, and 15.) 

And, finally, it is plain that at the very center Love as life. 
of the teaching of Jesus lies the all-dominating 
conviction that a genuine seeking love is at the 
heart of all life, whether in God, in Christ, or in 
the disciple of Christ. 

While, then, our own study is to be confined to The ethical 
the directly ethical teaching of Jesus, there must ^^sln" 
be clear discernment that in that teaching, as it is Jesus' 
represented in the Gospels, and as it has been teac mg ' 

1 Cf. Scott, The Apologetic of the New Testament. 

2 Cf. Harnack, The Sayings of Jestis, pp. 233-246; Cambridge 
Theological Essays, p. 538. 



32 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

accepted through the centuries by the Church, the 
ethical and religious are constantly interwoven ; 
that Jesus thinks of his message always as a mes- 
sage of great good news to men, that goes back to 
his great conviction of God as true Father. But 
this very conviction of God as Father, of essential 
love at the heart of the universe, makes Jesus cer- 
tain that the laws of the universe, and of the world 
of men, as laws of the loving God, must be laws of 
life, to be studied, to be heartily welcomed, to be 
joyfully obeyed. And this insight into the laws of 
the relations of man to man is the more sure and 
deep and significant because these relations are 
seen in the light of the whole. Even for the man 
who can find no sure religious message in Jesus, 
his strictly ethical teaching contains a priceless 
treasure. 1 

1 Cf. Schmiedel, Jesus in Modern Criticism, pp. 90-91 ; Gardner, 
Exploratio Evangelica, pp. 118-119, cf. pp. 177, 178, 193 ff., 325. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN SCHMIEDEL'S 
FOUNDATION-PILLAR PASSAGES, AND IN THE 
DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS. CRITERIA 

I. SchmiedeVs "Foundation-pillars" 

As we have already seen, Schmiedel, in seek- SchmiedePs 
ing what he calls "foundation-pillars of a really ^assifica- 
scientific life of Jesus," selects nine passages passages. 
"whose contents," he thinks, " could not have been 
invented"; 1 and with them groups three others, 
which, he says, " any impartial inquirer would admit 
are of the same truthful nature." 2 Upon these 
twelve passages he believes that we may unhesi- 
tatingly build. He divides these passages into 
three groups : the first five as those " which throw 
light on Jesus' character as a whole " ; the next four, 
" which have a special bearing upon his character 
as a worker of wonders " ; 3 and the last three he 
adds, " because it is incumbent upon every critic of 
his [Jesus'] life to say in what his greatness con- 
sisted." 4 We begin our study of the ethical teach- 
ing of Jesus with these twelve passages. 

The nine " foundation-pillars " which Schmiedel The pas- 
selects, and the three supplementary, equally cer- ^^^" 
tain, passages, are : — Schmiedel. 

1 Jesus in Modern Criticism, p. 15. 2 Op. cit., p. 25. 

8 Op. cit. t p. 18. * Op. cit., p. 25. 

d 33 



34 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

I. The "foundation-pillars" 

i) Indicating Jesus 1 " character as a whole. 1 ' 

(i) And when his friends heard it, they went out to J 

hold on him : for they said, He is beside himself. 
And there come his mother and his brethren ; and, 
standing without, they sent in to him, calling him. 
And a multitude was sitting about him ; and 
they say unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy 
brethren without seek for thee. And he answer- 
eth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my 
brethren ? And looking round on them that sat 
round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother 
and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the 
will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, 
and mother. Mark 3:21, 31-35. 

(2) But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not 

even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but 
the Father. Mark 13 : 32. 

(3) And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me 

good ? none is good save one, even God. Mark 
10: 18. 

(4) And whosoever shall speak a word against the 

Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but who- 
soever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it 
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, 
nor in that which is to come. Matt. 12 : 32. 

(5) And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 

Eloi, Eloi, lamasabachthani? which is, being in- 
terpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me? Mark 15 : 34. 
2) Indicating Jesus 1 " character as a worker of wonders." 

(6) And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and said, Why 

doth this generation seek a sign? verily I say 
unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this 
generation. Mark 8:12. 

(7) And he could do there no mighty work, save that 

he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and 



schmiedel's "foundation-pillars 35 

healed them. And he marveled because of 
their unbelief. Mark 6 : 5-6. 

(8) The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 

the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and 
the dead are raised up, and the poor have good 
tidings preached to them. Matt. 11 : 2-6. v. 5. 

(9) And Jesus said unto them, Take heed and be- 

ware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees. Matt. 16: 5-12. v. 6. 
2. Passages " of the same truthful nature," indicating " in what 
his greatness consisted." 

(10) For he taught them as one having authority, and 

not as their scribes. Matt. 7 : 29. 

(11) And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and 

he had compassion on them, because they were 
as sheep not having a shepherd : and he began 
to teach them many things. Mark 6 : 34. 

(12) Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 

laden, and I will give you rest. Matt. 1 1 : 28. 

I. In Schmiedel's first passage there are to be Passages 
seen at least the downright earnestness of the life hearing on 

Jesus char 

of Jesus, and especially his sense of the necessity acter as a 
of moral and spiritual independence, even against 
the attempted dictation of those near and dear. 31-35 
This is certainly involved in his words, " For who- 
soever shall do the will of God, the same is my 
brother, and sister, and mother." Herrmann's 
words might be quoted as an almost direct com- 
ment upon this passage (Mark 3 : 31-35) : " Mental 
and spiritual fellowship among men, and mental 
and spiritual independence on the part of the in- 
dividual — that is what we can ourselves recognize 
to be prescribed to us by the moral law." " Reli- 



whole. 
Mark 3:21, 



36 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

gious tradition is indispensable for us. But it helps 
us only if it leads us on to listen to what God says 
to ourselves." 1 That is to say, every soul must 
come into a moral and spiritual life of his own, be 
absolutely true to his own best light, do what is 
for him now "the will of God" (v. 35). Only so 
can he come into kinship with the spirit of Jesus. 
Jesus here plainly indicates that spiritual dictation 
by another may become a sore temptation, but it 
must be resisted at any cost. It is striking that 
in this first passage of Schmiedel's there should 
come out so unmistakably this absolutely funda- 
mental moral principle of the necessity of moral 
and spiritual independence, of life in oneself. 
There is plainly to be seen here, too, an absolutely 
ethical conception of religion, as well as the reli- 
gious conception of the ethical life. The sum of 
life is doing the will of God. 2 There is no slightest 
suggestion of the possibility of a true religious 
relation to God except in this ethically obedient 
conduct ; and yet duty is thought of as no mere 
abstraction, but as the will of the personal God. 
Mark 2. Schmiedel's second passage — "Of that day 

13 : 32, or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels 

in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father " — 
occurs in the eschatological discourse as given in 
Mark, and seems not only to show a sense of limi- 
tation of knowledge at a certain point, but also 
clearly to imply a consciousness on the part of 

1 Faith and Morals, pp. 129-130, 192. 

2 Cf. Briggs, The Ethical Teaching of Jesus, pp. 34 ff. 



SCHMIEDEL'S " FOUNDATION-PILLARS 2>7 

Jesus of unique relation to God ; but it contains no 
direct ethical suggestion. 

3. Schmiedel's inference from the third passage Mark 
— " Why callest thou me good ? none is good save IO : x ' 
one, even God " — " that Jesus refused to allow the 
epithet 'good' to be applied to him," seems to 
prove a little too much even for Schmiedel's pur- 
pose. The saying seems rather to reflect again 
the deep earnestness of the life of Jesus, answering 
as he so often did the question which was back in 
the inquirer's mind. There was to be no bandying 
of compliments ; he wishes to bring the man into 
an absolutely honest attitude at once, an attitude 
in which he was not idly to ascribe goodness to any 
one. It indicates, also, Jesus' sense of the holiness 
of God, as the one great source of life and charac- 
ter; 1 and the rebuke contains, thus, in itself, a 
partial answer to the young man's question as to 
eternal life. Jesus is reminding him of the match- 
less purity of the true standard of holiness in God, 
and that must mean that, in earnest seeking after 
eternal life, there must be no paltering with ideals 
in false and easy compromise. The remainder of 
the incident, as given in Mark, carries out this 
point of view. 

4. Upon the passage concerning blasphemy Matt. 
against the Son of man, Schmiedel says that it I2 : 3 ** 
shows that Jesus " attached importance not to his 
own person, but simply to the Holy Spirit; in other 
words, to the sacred cause which he represented." 2 

x Cf. Martensen, Christian Ethics, pp. 61 ff. 2 Op. cit., p. 23. 



38 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

And if one is to take the context into account, that 
certainly does show that Jesus is thinking of that 
blindness of prejudice which will not recognize a 
good work as good, which will not trust its own 
instinctive moral judgments, — that essential false- 
ness of character which is absolutely recreant to the 
inner light, which puts out its own eyes, puts dark- 
ness for light in ascribing good to evil. This is 
blasphemy against the very Spirit of holiness and 
truth, where the distinctions of good and evil are 
gone. Jesus sees this as a fatal sin, as moral sui- 
cide, — in Mark's language, as being "guilty of an 
eternal sin." This passage is like the first, then, 
in its insistence on truth to oneself, on fidelity to 
the inner light. The warning is, thus, not against 
some fantastic form of profanity, but against that 
blind prejudice, that supreme devotion to external 
rules and ends, that obtuseness of mind and heart, 
that playing fast and loose with one's conscience, 
which blur the moral and spiritual vision, blurring 
all distinctions, until one loses the sense of dis- 
cerning between righteousness and wickedness, 
and excuses and follows evil as good. The pas- 
sage is a most solemn call to utter truth to our own 
best vision, without sophisticating excuses. 1 
Mark 5. Upon the very difficult passage — " My God, 

15 : 34 ' my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " — one may 

certainly say, with Schmiedel, that, as indicating a 

1 Cf. W. T. Davison, art. "Forgiveness," D. C. G., p. 617: "The 
only sin thus pronounced unpardonable is that of wilful and per- 
sistent sinning against light till light itself is turned into darkness." 



SCHMIEDEL's " FOUNDATION-PILLARS " 39 

moment of desperate darkness on Jesus' part, the 
saying is not likely to have been fabricated ; it is 
impossible to imagine its being gratuitously as- 
cribed to Jesus later. And in this very fact we 
may see evidence of the greater trustworthiness of 
the narrative, of the unusual degree in which it 
may be regarded as objective. Schmiedel himself 
is unwilling to admit that this saying on the cross 
shows that " Jesus died in despair." " Can we 
really be sure," he says, " that these words indi- 
cate an abandonment of all that gave Jesus strength 
and stay during his life ? Do we really know so 
precisely what they mean ? " 1 The incident does 
have undoubted difficulties, and we may not be able 
wholly to explain it. In any case the whole ex- 
planation does not belong here. But, whatever 
the explanation, the cry at least shows the reality 
of his life and struggle, that it was no drama, no 
play-life; it feels real, and it is real. However we 
are to adjust our formulations of Jesus' nature, the 
reality of his life and struggle cannot be denied. 
He has a bitter fight to make, a calling to fulfill, a 
trust to which he must not prove recreant. The 
cry shows him in the midst of his soul struggle, 
suddenly confronted with the experience of the 
apparently hidden face of God. The incident also 
indicates that, in spite of this awful sense of deso- 
lation, there is no faltering of purpose. He is to 
be absolutely true to the end, even when he can- 
not longer see God. The startled, astonished cry 

1 Op. cit, pp. 50,51. 



40 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Passages 
bearing on 
miracle- 
working. 



Mark 
8 : 12. 



implies, too, that he was in the habit of living in the 
strong sense of the presence of God. 1 

With this passage we turn from those which 
Schmiedel regards as throwing " light on Jesus' 
character as a whole" to those which "have a 
special bearing on his character as a worker of 
wonders." 

6. The passage — "There shall no sign be given " 
— Schmiedel interprets as meaning, "that on prin- 
ciple he declined to work a sign, that is to say, 
to do something which seemed to be a miracle, 
when this was to be done with the purpose of 
proving his divine right." 2 

With this judgment of Schmiedel I wholly 
agree. It is most significant that this saying 
should be preserved in spite of the record of mir- 
acles. It is not too much to say that it indicates 
a fundamental principle upon which Jesus con- 
stantly acted, — the principle of the necessary 
inwardness of the moral and religious life, and the 
consequent necessity of perpetually observing rev- 
erence for the person. The context shows that 



*Cf. The Creed of Christ, p. 193. 

2 Op. cit., pp. 23-24. Schmiedel is probably correct in recognizing 
the accuracy of Luke's version here — "There shall no sign be given 
to it but the sign of Jonah," etc. (Luke 11 : 29-30), and in rejecting 
Matt. 12:40 as an added clause, due to misunderstanding. The 
very point of the refusal of the sign would seem, otherwise, to be 
lost. Jesus seems to have been struck with the fact that Jonah 
gave no sign of his message from God; he only spoke directly to 
the reason and conscience of the Ninevites in his warning. He 
made only the inner appeal. 



SCHMIEDEL S "FOUNDATION-PILLARS 41 

the saying is called out by the fact that the Phari- 
sees are seeking some overwhelming, external test 
that they can tie to ; even Jesus' works of healing 
do not satisfy them. He refuses to submit to such 
a test, or to defend his claims in that way. Why ? 
He is seeking to bring men into a moral and spir- 
itual life of their own. His kingdom, in his con- 
ception, can only so come. In that kingdom 
every man is an elector. Nothing is achieved 
without this inward moral and spiritual life. This 
sense of the inevitable inwardness of the moral 
and spiritual life necessarily leads to constant rev- 
erence, on the part of Jesus, for the person, and 
to the habitual way in which he distinctly subor- 
dinates all miracle working to his moral and reli- 
gious mission. * 

7. To the same principle the next passage — Mark 
"He could do there no mighty work" — also bears : s ~ ' 
witness. Even his work of healing goes forward 
on moral conditions, on faith ; it is no mere magic. 
Just as is implied in the narrative of the tempta- 
tions, so in this particular case all the rest of his 
work is to be subordinated to the moral and spir- 
itual. The passage clearly indicates, too, that 
Jesus was not relieved from the conditions that 
beset similar work of other men ; for him, too, 
some receptivity was requisite. What he can do 

1 Cf. Bennett, Life of Christ According to St. Mark, pp. 25 ff . ; 
Harnack, What is Christianity ? p. 28; Matheson, Studies in the 
Portrait of Christ, vol. I, pp. 173 ff.; Bruce, The Training of the 
Twelve, p. 156. 



42 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

for men depends also upon them. God himself 
cannot force moral choice and spiritual growth and 
attainment upon men. 
Matt 8. In like manner, Jesus' answer to John's 

ii : 2-6. question — " Art thou he that cometh, or look we 
for another ? " — shows that Jesus is not relieved 
from conditions like ours. He had here to face 
the distrust of a previous warm friend. Schmiedel, 
rather curiously and inconsistently, makes this pas- 
sage an argument against the reality of the works 
of healing. It would have been more consistent 
with his own emphasis, just referred to, if he 
had seen that, in the evidence for his mission to 
which Christ appeals, he makes it a culminating 
proof, beyond all works of healing, that " the poor 
have good tidings preached to them." Above all 
works of wonder is this work of bringing good 
tidings to the poor. The best proof of his Mes- 
siahship is, thus, in the thought of Jesus, moral 
and spiritual, and the appeal is once more to the 
inner vision ; and this seems plainly to be the 
point, too, of the last verse of the passage — 
" Blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of 
stumbling in me." 
Matt. 9- Schmiedel's next passage, so far as it bears 

16 : 5-12. on the teaching of Jesus, has its significance 
almost wholly in the sixth verse — " Take heed 
and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and 
Sadducees." This passage indicates that, at least 
in the mind of Jesus, his teaching is set over against 
the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees in plain 



schmiedel's "foundation-pillars ' 43 

contrast. Their teaching is not even to be con- 
sidered a supplement of his ; no compromise seems 
to him really possible. In some sense, at least, 
his teaching is thought of as new, and revolution- 
ary of the common standards. He seeks to build 
up a discipleship characterized by another spirit. 
This passage does not indicate in what the con- 
trast consists, but does make the contrast itself 
unmistakable. 1 

io. The first of the three added passages of Passages 
Schmiedel, intended to make clear in what Jesus' sho ™ ir *g m 

J what Jesus 

greatness consists, emphasizes the evident strik- greatness 
ing impression of authority in his speech, as con- consists - 
trasted with the dependence on tradition shown 
by the scribes. 

This impression of authority, of course, exactly Matt, 
matches Jesus' own insistence on the necessary 7:29. 
inwardness of the moral and spiritual life. He 
speaks out of such a life, and therefore with con- 
viction and with the impression of authority. 
And it is impossible to run even cursorily over the 
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, to which this 
saying is attached, without seeing how this im- 
pression of spiritual authority must have been 
given. In these sayings his own view is set in 
fearless contrast to the spirit of the times ; he 
trusts completely his own insights and dares ex- 
press them. Here are spiritual discoveries of 
qualities counted by him essential to character and 
happiness and influence, which men had scarcely 

1 Cf. Eaton, art. " Pharisees," H. D. B., p. 828. 



44 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

recognized. Here Jesus undertakes to judge even 
as to the law, the oracles of God, and makes him- 
self standard and judge of conduct. 

And it is equally plain that the authority which 
Jesus here claims is not external, but is due to his 
own inner appeal to the reason and conscience of 
man, to the self-evidencing power of his words. 
His religion, in this sense, is not at all a religion 
of authority, but of the spirit, as Sabatier has con- 
tended ; 1 he does not wish to lay down even his own 
commands as rules from outside ; if even they are 
to be of value, they must become self-legislation, 
laid down for every man from within. But in 
this deeper, inner sense, his teaching still makes 
this same impression of authority, and he has, 
just for this reason, become the supreme moral 
and spiritual authority (in the scientific sense of the 
word) of the world, our personalized conscience, our 
best guide. We hardly realize the greatness of the 
gift to the race that is to be found in such an ideal 
as he both shows and teaches. 
Mark ii. The second quality in which Schmiedel finds 

6 : 34- the greatness of Jesus is compassion^ as reflected in 

the words — " And he came forth and saw a great 
multitude, and he had compassion on them, be- 
cause they were as sheep not having a shepherd, 
and he began to teach them many things." Here 
it seems evident that Jesus must have given the 

1 Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, bks. I and 
II, pp. viii, xxxi, xx-xxii; cf. Foster, The Finality of the Christian 
Religion, ch. IV. 



schmiedel's "foundation-pillars" 45 

impression of a mighty understanding pity for 
men as preeminently characteristic of him, — the 
sense of an unbounded, unlimited compassion for 
the multitude, for men as men. This compassion 
is thought of as steadily characteristic of Jesus, 
and it is indeed his great contribution to the spir- 
itual convictions of the race, — the deep sense of the 
value of all men as men, as all alike children of God, 
and so calling out his great compassion. The reason 
for his compassion in this passage is found in their 
likeness to sheep gone astray from pasture and 
fold, having no shepherd, without guiding faith 
and convictions, with no key to life's secret, no 
clear way into life, missing everywhere life's best, 
seeking life in desert places, missing happiness, 
missing the great springs of character, missing 
significant lives of achievement and influence. The 
passage implies, at the same time, Jesus' own 
sense of the possession of life's secret, — that he 
has much to give them. He has the great good 
news, he needs only to share with them his own 
secret, and therefore he " began to teach them 
many things." In this passage, then, we have 
as the ground for reverence for Christ his great 
boundless, but intelligent, compassion for men. 

12. Schmiedel's last passage is the great invita- Matt, 
tion — "Come unto me all ye that labor and are JI : 2i 
heavy laden." This passage has in it the sense 
of authority of the first of these three added pas- 
sages, and the boundless compassion of the second, 
coupled once more with the sense of the ability to 



4 6 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



SchmiedePs 
inferences. 



Our own 

ethical 
inferences. 



give rest to all men ; and it seems hardly possible 
to avoid in this passage also the impression that he 
feels that what he has to give is connected with him 
personally, that he feels a unique relation to men 
that goes back to a sense of unique mission from God. 

When one tries, now, to summarize the infer- 
ences from these " foundation-pillar " passages of 
Schmiedel, he may note, in the first place, that 
Schmiedel's own treatment emphasizes the com- 
plete trustworthiness of these passages, as well as 
much else; namely: the entire earnestness and 
genuineness of Jesus, his subordination of all else 
in his work to the moral and spiritual, his own great 
qualities and claims growing out of an experi- 
ence that forces him to believe he is Messiah, in 
Schmiedel's judgment, 1 and yet the conviction that 
Jesus lived a truly human life. 

Studying these passages from a different point 
of view, not to get the foundations for a scientific 
life of Jesus, but for their bearing on his ethical 
teaching, our own study has given us these main 
inferences : — 

In the first passage (Mark 3 : 2 1 , 3 1-3 5) we noted 
Jesus' downright earnestness, his insistence on the 
necessity of moral and spiritual independence, on 
the inwardness of the spiritual life, and upon reli- 
gion as essentially ethical. 

The second passage (Mark 13 : 32) has no direct 
ethical teaching, but implies Jesus' sense of unique 
knowledge and mission. 

1 Op. cit., p. 46. 






SCHMIEDEL S " FOUNDATION-PILLARS 47 

The third passage (Mark 10:18, "Why callest 
thou me good? ") shows again the earnestness of 
Jesus, his reverent sense of the holiness of God, and 
(in the context) his ethical conception of religion. 

The fourth passage, as to blasphemy against the 
Spirit (Matt. 12 : 32), shows his insistence upon the 
seriousness of life, upon genuineness and truth to 
the inner light as absolutely essential, and again 
suggests a radically ethical conception of religion. 

The fifth passage (Mark 15 : 34, " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ") we cannot be 
sure that we are able to fathom ; but it shows at 
least the reality of Jesus' life and struggle, his 
earnestness again, since there is no suspicion of 
faltering, and his usually constant sense of the 
presence of God. 

These five passages, then, bearing, as Schmiedel 
says, on Jesus' " character as a whole," show, on 
the ethical side, his earnestness, genuineness, and 
moral and spiritual independence, his demand for 
the same qualities in others, and his essentially 
ethical conception of religion. , 

Of the next four passages (in Schmiedel's classi- 
fication, dealing with Jesus' " character as a worker 
of wonders"), the first (Mark 8:12) emphasizes 
again the necessary inwardness of the moral and 
spiritual life, and Jesus' reverence for the person. 

The second (Mark 6 : 5-6, " He could do there 
no mighty work") shows that all his work was 
subordinated to the moral and spiritual, and illus- 
trates his confidence in his own mission. 



48 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

The third (Matt, n : 2-6, his answer to John's 
question) indicates his supreme estimate of the 
ethical and simply religious, the climax of the 
most marvelous works being found in the simple 
preaching of the gospel to the poor. 

The last passage in this group (Matt. 16:5-12, 
" Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,") indicates 
Jesus' sense of the contrast of his teaching with the 
prevailing teaching, that in some real sense his 
teaching is new and revolutionary, and that he 
must seek a discipleship characterized by another 
spirit than that of either Pharisees or Sadducees. 

Throughout this second group there is, thus, to 
be clearly felt Jesus' deep and fundamental convic- 
tion of the supremacy of the ethical and of the 
simply religious, even in the midst of the work 
of healing. 

In Schmiedel's last group, showing " in what his 
greatness consisted," the first passage (Matt. 7 : 29) 
emphasizes his impression of authority, and the 
sources of that impression of authority are evinced 
in the sermon to which this passage is attached. 
The impression throughout evidently grows out of 
his own manifest conviction, his clear insight, his 
experience in the moral and spiritual world, and 
his sense of mission. 

The second passage (Mark 6 : 34) emphasizes his 
great compassion for all men, as constantly charac- 
teristic of him, and implies upon his own part the 
sense of the possession of the secret of life which 
he would share with men. 



SCHMIEDEL S " FOUNDATION-PILLARS 49 

And the third passage (Matt, n : 28), the great 
invitation, evinces the same sense of power, the 
same compassion, and a like sense of unique rela- 
tion and mission to men. 

The inferences from Schmiedel's twelve pas- The infer- 
sages as a whole, arranged in a kind of logical Really 
order, might be said to be as follows : — arranged. 

(1) The earnestness of the life of Jesus, and the 
demand for like earnestness in others, no frivo- 
lousness of life. Passages 1, 3, 4, 5. 1 

(2) Absolute genuineness, integrity of life, truth 
to the inner light, as essential ; falseness, on the 
other hand, the fatal sin. Passages 4, 5 ; cf. g. 2 

(3) The necessary inwardness of all true moral 
and spiritual life ; the insistence upon moral and 
spiritual independence; that all else in one's life 
must be subordinate to the moral and spiritual. 
Passages 1,6; cf. 9, io. 3 

1 Cf. Ecce Homo, p. 299. 

2 Cf. Schmidt, The Prophet of Nazareth, p. 300 ; Bousset, Jesus, 
p. 139, — "His passion for truth and reality"; Herrmann, Faith 
and Morals, pp. 132 ff.; Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty, pp. 67, 
68, 112 ff., 121 ff., 357. 

3 Cf. Patrick, art. " Apostles," D. C. G., p. 109: " Not less evident 
was his desire that the Apostles should not be mere echoes of him- 
self, but men of originality, courage, and resource." Kilpatrick, 
art. " Character of Christ," D. C. G., pp. 287, 292 : " His teaching, 
therefore, is inexhaustible, begetting, in the process of studying it, 
the faculty of ethical insight, and continuously raising, in the effort 
to practice it, the standard of the moral judgment." " With his 
idea of man, and his conception of his vocation, it was impos- 
sible for Jesus to regard human personality as other than sacred." 
Herrmann, Faith and Morals, pp. 229 ff. " It is certain that he 
who fought against nothing so vehemently as the divided state of 

£ 



50 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

(4) The resulting fundamental principle of rever- 
ence for the person. Passages 1, 6, 7, 8. 1 

(5) The ethical conception of religion, and also 
the religious conception of the ethical. Jesus' 
own work is thought of as primarily moral and 
spiritual. Passages 3, 4, 6, 7, 8. 2 With this is to 
be closely connected 

(6) Jesus' sense of the contrast of his teaching 
with that of his times. Passages 4, 8, 9, 10, 1 1, 12. 3 

mind of insincere men, never wished to entice others by words of 
his into a mere external doing " (p. 183). See also pp. 129, 180 ff., 
I 9° } 384. Philochristus, p. 140. Dale does not seem wholly to 
escape the idea of external obedience, in his chapter " On Obeying 
Christ," in Laws of Christ for Com??ion Life, pp. 273 ff. The Creed 
of Christ, pp. 27 ff. ; Peabody, Jeszis Christ and the Christian Char- 
acter, pp. 39, 75, 99; Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, vol. I, pp. 
265 ff., 277 ff.; Swete, Studies in the Teaching of Our Lord, p. 61. 

1 How fundamental this principle is with Jesus will appear as 
the discussion goes forward. Cf. Bartlet, art. " Teaching of Jesus," 
D. C. G.,pp. 701, 704, 705 : " In all his sayings and doings our Lord 
was most careful to leave the individual room to grow." " He cher- 
ishes and respects personality." (Quoted from Latham, Pastor 
Pastorum.) Rowland, art. " Personality," D. C. G., p. 343; Willia, 
art. " Accommodation," D. C. G , p. 21 ; Kilpatrick, art. " Character 
of Christ," D. C. G., pp. 287, 292. Cf. Ecce Homo, pp. 155 ff.; Herr- 
mann, Faith and Morals, pp. 180 ff., 182, 229, 384; Mackenzie, 
A Manual of Ethics, pp. 138, 195 ff., 202; Nash, Ethics and Reve- 
lation, pp. 252-258; " With infinite self-restraint He must respect 
the individuality of his children," p. 253. 

2 Cf. Gardner, Exploratio Evangelica, pp. 13 ff., 17, 22, 192 ff., 512; 
Harnack, What is Christianity ?, pp. 75 ff.; Clouston, The Hygiene 
of Mind, p. 191; Bowne, The Principles of Ethics, pp. 200-204; 
Harris, Moral Evohttion, pp. 237-238; Forrest, The Christ of 
History and Expei-ience, pp. 112 ff., 132 ff., 318. 

3 This is nowhere, perhaps, brought out more strongly than in 
the anonymous The Creed of Christ, pp. 25, 27 ff., " systematic 



SCHMIEDEL S " FOUNDATION-PILLARS 5 I 

(7) His own deep and characteristic compassion, 
carrying with it a demand for a like spirit in others. 
Passages n, 12, 8. 

(8) Jesus' sense of insight, conviction, message, 
calling. Passages 7, 8, 10, 11, 12. 

(9) His sense of unique relation to God and men, 
of possessing the message of life for men. Pas- 
sages 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, n, 12. 1 

(10) The resulting impression of authority. 
Passage 10; cf. 12. 2 

It is particularly worth noting how much of Conclusion. 
fundamental ethical teaching is involved in even 
this short list of passages ; though they were chosen 
by Schmiedel not for their ethical content at all, 
but only as of peculiar trustworthiness, because at 
some point at variance with the common point of 
view of the narrator. These exceptional passages 
evidently are able to furnish a valuable criterion 
for the ethical teaching of Jesus. Nearly all these 

externalization"; cf. Mathews, Messianic Hope in the New Testa- 
ment, pp. 108, 109, — "Broke utterly with Pharisaism as a system," 
p. 108; cf. Harnack, What is Christianity ? , p. 238; Swete, op. cit., 
pp. 19 ff.; Stevens, Teaching of Jesus, p. 94; Briggs, The Ethi- 
cal Teaching of Jesus, pp. 16711.; Bruce, The Training of the 
Twelve, pp. 69 ff., 155 ff.; Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the 
Social Crisis, pp. 71 ff ., cf. ch. IV, "Why has Christianity never 
Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?"; Ecce Homo, 
pp. 286 ff. 

1 Swete, op. cit., pp. 26 ff.; Stevens, Teaching of Jesus, pp. 99 ff.; 
Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research, pp. 193 ff. 

2 Harnack, What is Christianity ?, p. 51 ; Forrest, The Christ of 
History and of Experience, pp. 52 ff.; Swete, op. cit., pp. 16 ff., 64; 
Burkitt, op. cit., pp. 174 ff.; Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, 
p. 101. 



52 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The ethical 

doubly 

attested 

sayings not 

already 

covered. 



inferences, it is to be further noted, are, in the 
first place, virtually ethical, though of course never 
excluding the religious. In the second place, they 
imply Jesus' thought of himself as having life to 
give, a message of life; and therefore, in the third 
place, all point forward to some further content in 
the teaching of Jesus, as even Schmiedel himself 
sees. 

II. The doubly attested sayings 

For a portion of that further content we turn 
now from these " f oundation-pillar " passages of 
Schmiedel to the " doubly attested sayings " of 
Jesus, as given by Burkitt, — those sayings which 
we may believe to be found not only in Mark, but 
also in the other common source of Matthew and 
Luke. These passages may be said to include 
what we most surely know of the teaching of 
Jesus, and of the resulting portrait of him. 

For our ethical inferences we may omit from 
Burkitt's list the passages already covered, and 
those that are non-ethical, and so make the follow- 
ing seventeen passages the basis of our discussion, 
retaining Burkitt's numbers for convenience of 
reference : — 

i . Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good, or to do harm ? 
to save a life, or to kill ? Mark 3:4. 

7. Is the lamp brought to be put under the bushel, or under 

the bed, and not to be put on the stand ? Mark 4:21. 

8. For there is nothing hid, save that it should be mani- 

fested ; neither was anything made secret, but that it 
should come to light. Mark 4 : 22. 

9. If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear. Mark 4: 23. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 53 

10. With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto 

you ; and more shall be given unto you. Mark 4 : 
24 b. 

11. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that 

hath not, from him shall be taken away even that 
which he hath. Mark 4:25. 

12. How shall we liken the kingdom of God ? or in what 

parable shall we set it forth ? It is like a grain of 
mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, 
though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the 
earth, yet when it is sown, groweth up, and becometh 
greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great 
branches ; so that the birds of the heaven can lodge 
under the shadow thereof. Mark 4 : 30-32. 
14. Wheresoever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye 
depart thence. And whatsoever place shall not re- 
ceive you, and they hear you not, as ye go forth thence, 
shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testi- 
mony unto them. Mark 6 : 10-1 1 . 

17. If any man would come after me, let him deny him- 

self, and take up his cross and follow me. Mark 
8:34. 

18. And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that 

believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a 
great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he 
were cast into the sea. Mark 9 : 42. 

19. And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is 

good for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than 
having thy two hands to go into hell, into the un- 
quenchable fire. And if thy foot cause thee to stumble, 
cut it off: it is good for thee to enter into life halt, 
rather than having thy two feet to be cast into hell. 
And if thine eye cause thee to stumble, cast it out : it 
is good for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with 
one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into 
hell ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
quenched. Mark 9 : 43-48. 



54 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

20. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness, where- 

with will ye season it ? Have salt in yourselves, and 
be at peace with one another. Mark 9 : 50. 

21. Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, 

committeth adultery against her : and if she herself shall 
put away her husband, and marry another, she com- 
mitteth adultery. Mark 10:11-12. 

22. Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the 

Gentiles lord it over them ; and their great ones ex- 
ercise authority over them. But it is not so among you : 
but whosoever would become great among you, shall 
be your minister ; and whosoever would be first among 
you, shall be servant of all. For the Son of man also 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to 
give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10 : 42-45. 

27. Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes, 

and to have salutations in the marketplaces, and chief 
seats in the synagogues, and chief places at feasts. 
Mark 12 : 38-39. 

28. And when they lead you to judgment, and deliver you 

up, be not anxious beforehand what ye shall speak : 
but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that 
speak ye; for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy 
Spirit. Mark 13 : 11. 
31. It is as when a man, sojourning in another country, hav- 
ing left his house, and given authority to his servants, 
to each one his work, commanded also the porter to 
watch. Watch therefore: for ye know not when the 
lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at mid- 
night, or at cockcrowing, or in the morning. Mark 
13: 34-35 - 1 

1 In his discussion of the doubly attested sayings, Burkitt prints 
a list of thirty-one, but says explicitly that number 26 (Mark 12: 
32-34 a), dealing with the summary of the law, while at first glance 
a doublet, is not really so. And the sixth saying in his list (Mark 
4 : 3 _ 9)5 the parable of the sower, he admits can be put into Q only 
by conjecture; and his reasons do not seem to be convincing for 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 55 

As one reviews the passages as a whole, it is The form 



plain that they are all of very simple character, 
almost always either in the form of a proverb or 
condensed parable. They are sayings of the kind 
that would be most certain to stick in the memory, 

regarding number 13 (Mark 6 : 4) as doubly attested, — the passage 
"A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country." Of 
this list of 31, also, 6 passages (Burkitt's numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 16) 
may be omitted as virtually covered already in the discussion of 
Schmiedel's passages : the three sayings contained in the Beelzebub 
passage, and the sayings, " Whosoever shall do the will of God, the 
same is my brother, and sister, and mother;" "Why doth this 
generation seek a sign? " " Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." 
(Mark 3:22-26; Mark 3:27; Mark 3:28-30; Mark 3:31-34; 
Mark 8: 12b; Mark 8: 15.) Five other passages may be omitted 
from our consideration as non-ethical, — numbers 23, 24, 25, 29, 
and 30. (Mark 1 1 : 22-23, 2 4> 2 5> Mark 13 : 15-16; Mark 13 : 21.) 
These passages deal with prayer and with the coming of Christ. 

Not all these doubly attested sayings of Burkitt are given in the 
various reconstructions of Q attempted by different scholars; but 
the differences from Hawkins and Wendt and Wernle and Har- 
nack are not to be pressed too far, since — what Burkitt seems to 
overlook — the double attestation may be not simply by Mark and 
Q, but by Mark and one of the peculiar sources; and one scholar 
may incline to put the saying into one of these peculiar sources 
where another would put it into Q. As a matter of fact, however, 
seven of the sayings, those numbered by Burkitt 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 
20, and 30, all these four scholars agree in putting into Q. Eight 
of the sayings, numbers 3, 4, 7, n, 12, 21, 23, 24, all but one of 
them put in Q. Eight others may be regarded as still in all prob- 
ability doubly attested, — and in every case at least one other scholar 
besides Burkitt puts the saying into Q, — Burkitt's numbers 1, 9, 18, 
19, 22, 27, 28, and 31. 

With the omissions already noted, this gives seventeen doubly 
attested sayings, in all, to be considered for their ethical teaching, 
Burkitt's numbers 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 
27, 28, and 31. 



of the 
sayings. 



56 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Two kinds 
of sayings. 



Fundamen- 
tal laws of 
life in the 
doubly 
attested 
sayings. 



and they have, thus, a kind of internal evidence of 
being exactly the sort of sayings that might be 
expected to be most current, and therefore most 
easily doubly attested. 

Burkitt himself has a suggestive remark upon 
the sayings that deserves a moment's consideration : 
" When we study the life and work of the great 
personages of history and thought, there are two 
distinct things that we should desire to know about 
them. We desire to know their deeper teaching, 
to see and recognize the first formulation of some 
great idea, which comes new and strange from the 
brain of a man in advance of his time, an idea per- 
haps not destined to be fully understood and ap- 
preciated for many a long day. But we need also 
to understand the impression made by the man on 
his contemporaries ; we want to know what he 
stood for to them, as well as what he stands 
for to us. And this last kind of knowledge is 
the most necessary for us to have when we are 
studying those who are great because of the in- 
fluence they have had upon the general course 
of events, not only because of what they wrote 
or said." 1 

Burkitt himself believes that these doubly at- 
tested sayings are to be regarded as those " which 
impressed his followers generally," which showed 
" what was the main impression made by his teach- 
ing." But the two things of which Burkitt speaks 
are plainly not necessarily disassociated. The say- 

1 The Gospel History and Its Transmission, p. 167. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 57 

ings which the teacher regards as most important 
are pretty certain to be frequently and emphatically 
repeated, and to be put into such form as to be re- 
tained in the memory, although they may come 
only later into full understanding and appreciation. 
One's own experience must be evidence of the way 
in which some early teaching was long held in 
memory, not because its significance was then 
clearly understood, but simply because some early 
teacher made it so emphatic. And in the case of 
these doubly attested sayings of Jesus, I think we 
shall find clear evidence not only that they are 
those teachings which most impressed the disciples, 
but that they not less clearly include as well prin- 
ciples which must have been absolutely central in 
Jesus' own thought. The very use, indeed, of a 
proverb or a parable seems to be to hold in 
memory and before the mind for further considera- 
tion truths only partly comprehended. We may 
regard, therefore, these doubly attested sayings as 
a kind of statement on Jesus' part of at least many 
of the fundamental laws of life. 

We are to turn, then, to a rapid consideration of 
seventeen sayings of Jesus that may be regarded 
as clearly doubly attested, and having direct ethi- 
cal bearing. As recurring passages, they naturally 
supplement the exceptional passages of Schmiedel, 
and serve as a still more certain and adequate cri- 
terion for the entire teaching of Jesus. Certainly, 
in combination with those passages, these give a 
basis upon which we may securely build. 




58 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

M ark i. The first passage — "Is it lawful on the 

3 ' 4 * Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm ? to save 

a life, or to kill ? " — grows out of a situation 
which was probably intended to be a definite chal- 
lenge on the part of the Pharisees, and which 
constituted a crisis in the ministry of Jesus. 1 
This challenge and crisis he deliberately and defi- 
nitely faced. The passage shows Jesus applying 
his principle of love to the highest of Jewish insti- 
tutions, — the Sabbath, — and brings out his insist- 
ence that even this highest of institutions is to be 
regarded as means, not end, that it must serve 
men, that love is to dominate all means, that love 
is the supreme law. 
Mark 7. The germ-parable of the lamp is probably 

to be connected directly with the parable of the 
sower. It contains, indeed, in itself an explana- 
tion of the use of parables. "Is the lamp brought 
to be put under the bushel, or under the bed, and 
not to be put on the stand ? " The saying makes 
an inner appeal to the reason and conscience of 
his hearers, and insists that light is given that it 
may be used, that the only reason for the posses- 
sion of truth, of power, of privilege, is that they 
may be of service. This constitutes the only rea- 
son for the being or the bestowal of aught. The 
teaching is, thus, an unmistakable insistence that 
men must use their light, must be true to it them- 
selves and bear honest witness for others. 

1 Cf. Mark 3 : 2, 6. See Bennett, The Life of Christ According to 
St. Mark, pp. 38-47 ff., and E. A. Abbott, Phi/ochristus, pp. 127-128. 



4 : 21. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 59 

8. The next saying is at least closely akin to Mark 
this, if not spoken by Jesus in immediate connec- 4 : 22 ' 
tion with it — " For there is nothing hid, save that 

it should be manifested ; neither was anything made 
secret, but that it should come to light." The say- 
ing is possibly an answer to the implied objection 
to the preceding saying — that the light is too 
precious to waste, that we are saving it. Or per- 
haps, rather, Jesus is here simply taking another 
analogy to show the folly of not using what we 
have; like the folly of the old-fashioned parlors 
that no one ever enjoyed, or of never eating any- 
thing but specked apples. There is no sense, 
Jesus is here saying, of saving a thing if you are 
not saving it for some use ; nothing of value is to 
be kept always hid. That which is hid is hid with 
reference to later use or manifestation in some way. 
Its hiding, if rational, is preservation for future 
use; this is its sole justification. Do not be so 
foolish, therefore, Jesus here urges, as to think 
that hoarding and preserving are ends in them- 
selves; they point forward to use, to service. 
Have you anything of value ? some special knack, 
talent, power, gift of entertainment, some inspir- 
ing truth, some great new revelation ? use it, share 
it. This seems to be the clear bearing of this 
teaching of Jesus. 

9. The saying — "If any man hath ears to hear, let Mark 
him hear," — is of a kind that must have been often 4 : 23 * 
repeated. It is a clear summons to attention, to 
thought, to the use of one's powers, and is the inner 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

appeal, again, for obedience to present light as the 
very way into further enlightenment and growth. 
Attention and thought make the road to the under- 
standing and the heeding of the truth. There are 
no limits to be set to the growth of the attentive, 
open mind. One's own attention is the great fac- 
tor in his growth. This takes up again the under- 
lying lesson in the parable of the sower. This 
undoubtedly repeated saying of Jesus is the chal- 
lenge everywhere of life, of the whole of God's 
world, of all real education. In all there are great 
opportunities, but only opportunities. The best of 
life will not and cannot be thrust on one. Here 
is opportunity of growth, of developing insight, of 
power, of moral conquest. " Will you, or will you 
not, have it so ? " " If any man hath ears to hear, 
let him hear." Here lies the very possibility of 
the ethical life, and the reason for its inevitable 
seriousness. 
Mark io. The saying — "With what measure ye mete, 

4:24b. ^ shall be measured unto you" — seems to have 
been a proverb of the time, as it is said to occur 
repeatedly in the Talmud. It is possible, if not 
probable, that the saying may have its primary 
reference to what God shall measure out to us ; 
but it seems also, as Jesus takes it up here, a 
fundamental law in all personal relations. Men, 
too, tend to respond to one in like coin to that 
which one brings. Jesus' use of the proverb 
seems to mean that he has clearly seen that the 
world and men are so made that a stingy man 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 6 1 

gets, necessarily, a stingy life. In the connection 
in which the passage is here found, it seems to 
have this force, — that in sharing with others, and 
only so, can much be shared with you. As you 
give out to others, you shall receive the more. 
Bear witness to the truth you see. Share your 
visions. So may you share in others' insights, 
and in the very sharing get, yourself, the more. 
Here is plainly a fundamental law of life, or an 
illustration, perhaps, of Christ's all-inclusive law 
of life through death. No soul can thus steadily, 
persistently share its best with others and not it- 
self be greatly enriched. In human relations this 
willingness to measure liberally is a prime condi- 
tion, too, of the triumph of the good, since it is the 
one way to secure not good treatment, alone, from 
others, but the really right spirit in others. 

ii. The saying — " For he that hath, to him shall Mark 
be given : and he that hath not, from him shall be 4 : 25 ' 
taken away even that which he hath " — strikes one 
at first as unjust; and yet one cannot think upon 
it long without seeing that here, too, we have an- 
other law of life, another inevitable condition of 
the triumph of the good. It is really only Jesus' 
statement of the law of growth, of the modern 
psychological law of habit, and probably means 
that power in any line grows by exercise. It 
might also be called the law of interest, as Dr. 
Ballantine has suggested, and might be phrased, 
" He that hath interest, to him shall be given 
more principal; and he that hath not interest, 



62 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

from him shall be taken away even that principal 
which he hath." Have you, therefore, anything 
of value ? Its use will increase it. Love, and you 
will love more. Serve, and you will gain in power 
of service. You stand always on the vantage 
ground of that already attained; and this is ex- 
actly the law of habit. On the other hand, refusal 
to use your powers, to share your truth, to witness 
to your insights, means steady loss ; your original 
gift tends steadily to decrease. In a dynamic world 
you cannot keep your force in a napkin. Jesus is 
here declaring his clear insight that, contrary to 
the selfish maxims of the world, the world and 
men are so made that life and power steadily lessen 
where there is the selfish refusal to share. This is 
the spiritual law of "diminishing returns," and it 
means that the world and men are made for love. 
Mark 12. The next doubly attested saying is the 

4:30-32. parable of the mustard seed, which, though it 
uses the phrase " Kingdom of God," seems to me 
plainly not primarily eschatological. 1 It is a state- 
ment, again, rather of the law of growth in the 

1 Cf. Bacon, art. "Jewish Eschatology and the Teaching of 
Jesus," Biblical World, July, 1909; Harnack, What is Christianity '?, 
pp. 53 ff . Even the future kingdom, however brought in, is in any 
case conceived by Jesus as finally ethical and spiritual, so that the 
eschatological cannot be the dominating conception. Cf. Muirhead, 
The Eschatology of Jesus, pp. 108, 114: "The Kingdom of God is 
the sum of all good things belonging to the supernatural life of God's 
children "/ and " these good things are, primarily, powers of holy 
truth and love acting on the human conscience and will." Cf. 
Bousset,y<?jw^, pp. 87, 89, 103; Nestle, art. " Lord's Prayer," D. C. G., 
p. 59, eschatological element " remarkably thrown into the back- 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 6$ 

moral and spiritual world, a word of encourage- 
ment as to the growth of this whole Kingdom of 
God among men, Jesus' revealing of his faith in 
the marvelous growth of good from small begin- 
nings. It is one of his own encouragements of 
himself, upon which we, too, may count. 1 It con- 
ground." So Harnack, op. cit., p. 65. Cf. Mathews, The Messianic 
Hope in the New Testament, Christ's necessary guarding of his own 
ideal of Messiah, pp. 96, 113, 115; cf. also the statement, " Escha- 
tology in his teaching is essentially a recognition of immortality," 
p. 123. So Harnack essentially, op. cit., p. 41. Cf. G. A. Smith, 
Jerusalem, p. 540. This is, of course, no denial of the presence of 
the eschatological element in the teaching of Jesus. See, upon the 
whole question, Mathews, The Messianic Hope in the New Testa- 
ment ; Muirhead, The Eschatology of Jesus ; Sharman, The Teach- 
ing of Jesus about the Future ; Ehrhardt, Der Grundcharakter der 
Ethik Jesu, im Verhdltniss zu den Messianischen; Hoffnungen seines 
Volkes und zu seinem eigenen Messianbewusstsein ; Fairweather, 
The Background of the Gospels, especially pp. 303-311; Muirhead, 
" Survey of Recent Literature on Jewish Eschatology," Review of 
Theology and Philosophy, June, 1908, p. 772, e.g. 

1 The parables pretty certainly form a definite stage in the 
teaching of Jesus, following a rather marked breach with the Jewish 
leaders (cf. Bennett, Life of Christ According to St. Mark'), pp. 
47 ff., 54 ff., 58, 64; Bartlet, art. "Teaching of Jesus," D. C. G., pp. 
701 ff.; Burkitt, op. cit., pp. 84 ff.) and they reflect plainly Jesus' 
consciousness at the time. In all the earlier ones, especially, he 
seems simply to be voicing to others lines of thought which he was 
using with himself for his own encouragement, in view of the in- 
creasing obstacles to his work. They are spoken directly and 
honestly out of his own experience. Thus the parable of the mustard 
seed suggests faith in the marvelous growth of the good; the parable 
of the leaven, similarly, the wonderfully contagious power of even a 
little germ of good hidden in the lump of society; the parable of 
the sower, that man's own choice is a constant element in the 
result of the truth, etc. (See below, in outline of the teaching in 
Mark, p. 108.) 



6 : io. 



64 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

tains his assurance that we may be bold in good 
and in opposition to the evil. It records Jesus' 
unshakable faith that the world belongs to God 
and to good, and that evil cannot finally tri- 
umph — the conviction that must lie at the bot- 
tom of every hopeful ethical struggle. 1 

Mark 14. The saying — " Wheresoever ye enter into a 

house, there abide till ye depart thence," etc. — gives, 
one may say, the law for the sharing of good. The 
passage implies that the disciples have a great good 
to share, the good news of the Kingdom ; and that 
this good cannot be simply forced upon men. If 
men will receive it, the disciples are to share it 
fully and generously, with no self-seeking and 
fickle change of quarters. If men will not re- 
ceive it, the disciples can still only faithfully 
bear witness that these men are shutting their 
lives from a supreme good. There is here to be 
seen not only Christ's deep sense of the great- 
ness and significance of his message, but his 
clear recognition that it must make progress 
among men only so far as it can make an inner 
appeal. In all efforts for the triumph of good, 
the final resource must be simple witness, in the 
face of either reception or rejection; but that 
witness there must be. 

Mark 17. In the next saying — "If any man would 

come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 
his cross and follow me" — Jesus is stating the 

1 Cf. C. S. Peirce, " A Neglected Argument for the Reality of 
God," Hibbert Journal, October, 1908, p. no. 



8 : 34 . 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 65 

law of life for himself and for his disciples alike. 1 
The man who would follow him, he says, must 
deny himself, must not make himself the center, 
must abandon the selfish life which makes the 
bearing on the self the constant criterion for con- 
duct, but must rather dare the hardest thing, even 
to the bearing of the cross to his own execution, 
rather than turn away from the call of duty. 2 
This is renunciation of the selfish self once for all, 
not the taking on of ascetic practices for ends that 
are still selfish. In Gould's language, " He is not 
to deny something to himself, but he is to renounce 
himself." " It is the negative side of the com- 
mand to love." 3 The call is rather to a life like 
Christ's, to a fundamental, steady, self-giving as 
the basic law of life. Against the whole selfish 
trend of men and of his time, Jesus affirms the 
universal law of self-giving love, the firm holding 
of oneself to the hard task that is called for by 
needed service. Jesus seems, in short, to be say- 
ing that, in the following of duty, such oblivious- 
ness to personal consequences must be manifest as 
would take a man even to crucifixion, rather than 
that he should fall away from duty. 

1 The passage has been called in question on account of its refer- 
ence to the cross, and it does seem plainly to call up the picture of 
going to execution; but that picture was not so uncommon a one 
as to raise any just reason against the historicity of the passage. Cf. 
Harnack, The Sayings of 'Jesus, pp. 204-205. 

2 Not self-sacrifice for its own sake, but self-sacrifice only as 
called for by love. Cf. Mathews, The Social Teaching of Jesus, p. 
192. 3 The International Critical Commentary, "Mark," p. 156. 

F 



66 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

Mark 18. "And whosoever shall cause one of these 

9 : 42 ' little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were 

better for him if a great millstone were hanged 
about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." 
On the ethical side, this passage plainly sug- 
gests the enormity of the sin of the stumbling of 
even the least of those who have entered honestly 
upon the path of duty. Death itself is to be pre- 
ferred to such stumbling of another. The passage 
has the feeling of a smothered indignation against 
the meanness of taking advantage of those who 
are only in the beginning of their fight for char- 
acter. The passage plainly denies, in Jesus' view, 
the right of a man to determine his conduct simply 
with reference to himself. He must consider its 
bearing on others as well. 
Mark 19. The deadly earnestness of tone of this pas- 

9 = 43-48. sa g e | s t0 k e seen, again, in the next of our doubly 
attested sayings — " If thy hand cause thee to 
stumble, cut it off : it is good for thee to enter into 
life maimed, rather than having thy two hands to 
go into the unquenchable fire." In the judgment 
of Jesus, this advice is not asceticism, 1 but good 
sense. One must be willing to pay the cost of 

1 Cf. Dudden, art. " Asceticism," D. C. G., pp. 128, 129, 130; 
Haruack, What is Christianity?, pp. 79 ff., 87; James Seth, art. 
" Certain Alleged Defects in Christian Morality," Hibbert Journal, 
October, 1907, pp. 104 ff.; Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian 
Character, pp. 167 ff.; Dobschutz, Christian Life in the Primitive 
Church, p. 377; Mathews, The Messianic Hope in the New Testa- 
ment, p. 279; Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament,^. 115; 
Briggs, The Ethical Teaching of 'Jesus, pp. 168, 169. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 6/ 

high attainment, to sacrifice the part to the whole, 
the temporary to the permanent, the relative to 
the absolute. It is another illustration of the 
general principle of Jesus that one must die to 
live. The passage shows the earnestness of Jesus, 
in his insistence upon the solemn seriousness of 
life, the possibility of remediless loss. Whatever in- 
terpretation one puts upon figures of the passage, 
it is impossible to escape this feeling. Christ's 
teaching, it should be noted here, is inevitably 
dead in earnest as to the seriousness of life. There 
is no question of qualms of sympathy or of simple 
desire ; for him there is only one true life ; if a 
man will not live that life — the loving — life, but 
if he will be selfish, he by that very thing shuts 
himself out from life. He plants the seed of 
death, whose harvest he must reap. It is because 
Jesus sees with such inevitable clearness that there 
are no possible devices by which the practices 
of selfishness can be manipulated into life, in no 
place and at no time and by no possible means, 
that he must say, Whatever causes thee to stumble 
in the way of life, set it unhesitatingly aside ; it is 
good for thee to enter into life without it, rather 
than to fail of life with whatever else. 1 

20. Closely connected in spirit with this pas- Mark 
sage is the saying, " Salt is good : but if the salt 9 : s ° a 
have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it ? " 
It seems most probable that Jesus is thinking of 
salt as that which preserves things sound, and so 

1 Cf. Gore, The Sermon on the Mount, pp. 66-67. 



68 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



uses it as a characteristic of the truly righteous man 
— implying the law of the contagion of the good. 
But directly, the saying is an insistence on funda- 
mental integrity of life. It declares the deadliness 
of falseness, the uselessness of sham. " If the 
salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season 
it ? " If the passage is to be connected with the 
one just considered, the spirit of discipline and of 
sacrifice seems to be specially in mind. And as 
related to others, this saying affirms that we must 
start from the fundamentally good life for the 
help of the world. The principle underlying it, 
as has just been noted, is the principle of the con- 
tagion of the good ; you cannot season the world 
with saltless salt. As compared with this impera- 
tive necessity for the fundamentally good life of 
the individual, all else is incidental. 1 
Mark 21. The next saying takes us still more clearly 

into the social world : " Whosoever shall put away 
his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery 
against her," etc. 2 Even independent of the con- 

1 Cf. Williams, A Reviezv of Evolutional Ethics, p. 447 : "It is 
doubtful whether there is any other benefit we can confer on 
our fellow-men so great as just the assurance that they can rely 
on us." 

2 In the parallel passage in Matthew 19: 3-9, the evangelist has 
pretty plainly so changed the passage in Mark as to produce a 
somewhat different impression. In Matthew 5 : 32, also, the clause, 
" saving for the cause of fornication," is probably an unwarranted 
addition to the saving of Jesus. Cf. Allen, International Critical 
Commentary, "Matthew," passim. See especially Burton, "The 
Biblical Teaching Concerning Divorce," Biblical World, March, 
1907; and upon the whole question: Peabody, Jesus Christ and 



10 : n-12. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 69 

text in which this passage occurs, the saying im- 
plies upon Jesus' part a high ideal of marriage. 
There was to be no bartering of husbands and 
wives, even though it be done under the forms of 
law, and that law the Mosaic law. The wife was 
no thing or slave to be put away at any whim of 
the husband ; and if the context is to be recognized, 
Jesus clearly declares that not even the Mosaic 
law can justify such putting away. By clear im- 
plication, also, Jesus is here demanding that there 
should be in marriage none of that same tyrannical 
spirit which was manifested in the putting away 
of the wife for small cause. Jesus is to be thought 
of here, probably, not as legislating, but as setting 
forth his ideal of marriage ; and his thought of 
marriage is that it was clearly intended by God 
to involve sacred and permanent obligations, a 
covenant with God and society, as well as with one 
another, and not, therefore, to be willfully set aside 
by the two persons first concerned. The positive 
principle underlying his declaration against divorce 
is the spirit of reverent love that forbids that the 
wife should be treated as a thing or a slave. And 
it may well be remembered that the record of 
marital unrest and divorce in America, shameful 
as it is, no doubt in many cases is not all an evil. 
Much of it goes back to an increasing sense of 
what is due to a person, to the demand that may 
legitimately be made for reverent love on the part 

the Social Question, ch. Ill; Mathews, The Social Teaching of 
Jesus, ch. IV; Murray, Handbook of Christian Ethics, pp. 253 ff. 



yO THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

of both husband and wife. In the very evil of 
divorce there is thus manifested a growing sense 
of that reverence for the person which underlay 
Christ's own high ideal of marriage. 
Mark 22. In the next saying — " Ye know that they 

10 : 42-45. w hich are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord 
it over them," etc. — Jesus is declaring, more posi- 
tively than the preceding sayings have done, the 
fundamental law of service for all who have given 
themselves to the life of righteousness. Jesus 
seems plainly to imply that this law is to be applied 
in all human relations. His only test of greatness 
is priority in service. " Whosoever would be first 
among you, shall be servant of all." The position 
of authority, in Jesus' thought, gives no right to 
lord it over others, or to lay upon them a command 
as of simple, willful authority. Rather, the man in 
the position of authority must justify his position by 
the greater service ; his only rightful claim upon 
the authoritative position is to be found in the de- 
gree of the service which he renders. If the 45th 
verse is to be taken into account, Jesus unhesitat- 
ingly applies the principle to himself in saying, 
" For even the Son of man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a 
ransom for many." His life, too, was to be pre- 
eminently for service, and his service to be of such 
a kind as to bring back many out of the captivity 
and loss of unworthy lives ; and he there suggests 
that all true service of others has something of this 
same redeeming quality. It need not be pointed 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 7 1 

out how far-reaching is this whole principle of the 
testing of all lives and all institutions by service, 
and by service only. Here is Jesus' law of priority, 
as based on service. 

27. In the saying, " Beware of the scribes, who Mark 
desire to walk in long robes," etc., Jesus declares I2 : 3 8- 39- 
that spirit unworthy of the true man which seeks 

the most conspicuous and best places, which 
seeks honors and discrimination from others. The 
saying is a protest against selfish consideration 
simply for self, against the ignoring of the rights 
and needs of others. In all this, Jesus sees a sin 
against love. His feeling seems to be that a gen- 
uinely loving, sensitive heart feels troubled to be 
singled out to the disadvantage of others. It does 
not wish to place others in unfavorable contrast. 
He is hurt that others are hurt. The son does not 
wish praise that implies dispraise of his father. It 
is not merely, therefore, the spirit of humility that 
is here called for, but rather the more inclusive 
spirit of a genuinely unselfish love. And it is pos- 
sible to interpret the passage sanely, probably, only 
as one keeps it in mind as one of the demands of 
love. 

28. In the saying, " And when they lead you to Mark 
judgment, and deliver you up, be not anxious before- *3 : "• 
hand what ye shall speak," etc., Jesus seems virtu- 
ally to be saying, If you are right, if your spirit is 
what it should be, if it is your loyalty to the truth 
which has brought you into straits, you need not be 
anxious for words. The fountain will determine 



72 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

the stream. All effective speaking must be pri- 
marily from within. If it is in you, it will come 
out. At the great crisis hours of life, therefore, 
where your own heart's life is genuinely involved, 
where you are yourself all aflame, you need not be 
anxious for words. Then the great need is not 
eloquent putting, that suggests you have not for- 
gotten yourself, but evidence of conviction, of love, 
of life ; and out of these the very simplicity of elo- 
quence is born. You speak, thus, what is " given 
you in that hour." You need not guard against 
speaking disloyalty, if only loyalty is in your heart. 
At such crisis hours you may follow trustfully and 
restfully the leading of the Spirit, who is the source 
of your life. Out of that life, that experience, you 
speak. So, speaking out of the Spirit-inspired life, 
you need not be anxious. 
Mark 3 1 . Closely akin in spirit to this saying is the next 

saying, " It is as when a man, sojourning in another 
country," etc. For the only preparation for crisis 
hours is in the spirit of watchfulness that has per- 
vaded the days preceding. Just because Jesus be- 
lieves that the moral and spiritual life must be from 
within, must be the man's own, the only safety lies 
in the most vigilant watchfulness. And not only the 
soundness of their inner life, but the great interests 
intrusted to his disciples, Jesus believes, demand 
this perpetual watchfulness. Great interests are 
at stake, and they do not know when the testing 
times may come. It is never safe, therefore, for 
the disciple of the righteous life to fall below his 



13 : 34-35- 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 73 

best. Jesus' thought in this passage is not merely, 
or chiefly, one of fear of punishment, but rather of 
shame in the jeopardizing of great interests. It 
will become increasingly clear in this study of the 
teaching of Jesus, that the insistence upon watchful- 
ness, in such passages as this, is no incidental ex- 
hortation, but is closely connected with his entire 
view of the moral and spiritual life. 1 

When one looks back over this entire list of the Summary 
doubly attested sayings of Jesus, it is plain that, ° n( ! es> er ' 
like proverbs, they are evidently intended to ex- 
press Jesus' discernment of various important laws Jesus' sense 
of life. They disclose an underlying but dominant Jhe*pir^ 
sense of law in the spiritual world. They show a itual world, 
kind of feeling on the part of Jesus that can hardly 
be called less than instinctively scientific. He has 
the clear sense that the spiritual life is so perva- 
sively one that there can be no accidents in it, but 
that one may count everywhere upon great laws 
as involved in the very fidelity of the Father. 

The first of these sayings thus — "Is it lawful inwardness 
on the sabbath day to do good, or to do harm ? " — and inde " 

-' ° ' pendence, 

asserts, on the one side, in Jesus' daring to enunci- and the 
ate this principle over against even the Sabbath, s ^^ acy 
the law of the necessary inwardness and independ- 
ence of the moral life. He acts upon an instinctive 
judgment of his own, and makes his appeal to a 

1 Cf. The Creed of Christ, on "spiritual indolence" as "the 
root " of Pharisaism, p. 94; Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian 
Character, p. 14 : the modern demand for " new alertness," " new 
sobriety," " new integrity." 



74 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The laws 
of use and 
growth. 



Law of 
conse- 
quences. 



Faith in 
growth of 
the good. 



like judgment in those to whom he speaks. And 
this same appeal is to be found in the 9th saying, 
" If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear." On 
the other side, this saying concerning the Sabbath 
expresses the law of the supremacy of love over 
even the highest and most sacred institution. 

The 7th and 8th sayings, as to the lamp and that 
which is hid, express what may be called the 
law of use ; what you have, these sayings insist, is 
given for use, and its possession becomes an ab- 
surdity on any other conception. This law, too, is 
implied again in the 9th saying, " He that hath ears 
to hear, let him hear"; and has an even stronger 
emphasis in the nth saying, "He that hath, to 
him shall be given; and he that hath not, from 
him shall be taken away even that which he hath." 
This saying might be called an expression of the 
law of growth or habit, on the one side, and the law 
of "diminishing returns " in the spiritual world, on 
the other. It enunciates the certainty of growth 
by exercise, of loss by disuse. 

The 10th saying — " With what measure ye 
mete, it shall be measured unto you" — may be 
called the law of consequences, or of cause and 
effect, in relation to others. It insists that in this 
world of personal relations, even as in the external 
world, like produces like ; results certainly follow ; 
that what one sows, that he shall reap. 

The 1 2th saying, the parable of the mustard 
seed, is an expression of the law of faith in the 
growth of the Kingdom — faith in the moral trend 






THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 75 

of the universe, without which there must be pa- 
ralysis not only of the religious life, but of all 
moral effort. 

The 14th saying, the direction to the Twelve Law of 
in the carrying of their message of the Kingdom, s ^ ing ihe 
may be called the law of sharing the good. It is 
Christ's insistence that none of the highest values 
of life can be forced upon men; concerning them 
one can only bear witness ; but this witness he is 
faithfully to bear. 

The 17th saying — "If any man would come Law of self- 
after me, let him deny himself " — is very clearly, sacn ce ' 
in Christ's thought, not merely a subordinate law, 
but a fundamental law of his discipleship, and so 
of any genuine ethical life. It may be called the 
law of self-sacrifice, and is only the negative side 
of his one great law of love, affirmed in the ist 
saying, and most clearly in the 26th, though that 
is probably not doubly attested. 

The 1 8th saying, as to stumbling " one of these The sin 
little ones," expresses Christ's sense of the enormity others" 1 mS 
of the sin of stumbling others, and implies his deep 
conviction of the constant seriousness of life. 

The 19th saying — "If thy hand cause thee to Law of 
stumble, cut it off " — brings out again, in incisive efficienc y- 
terms, this sense of the seriousness of life, and 
assumes as undoubted the thoroughgoing unity of 
life, while it states explicitly what may be called 
the law of efficiency, or the law of the simple life, 
the necessity of the sacrifice of the relative goods. 

The 20th saying — " Salt is good : but if the salt 



76 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The con- 
tagion of 
the good. 



Reverence 
for the 
person. 



Priority 
by service. 



Law of 

utterance. 



have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season 
it?" — implies the law of the contagion of the 
good, — that the business of the righteous man 
everywhere is to help keep society sound ; and 
states explicitly the law of the necessity of absolute 
integrity of life. The very savor has gone out of 
life where the life is not true through and through. 
Here, again, the insistent earnestness of Jesus 
comes into the foreground. 

The 2 ist saying, concerning divorce, proceeds 
upon the assumption of the fundamental law of 
reverence for the person. Neither husband nor wife 
may play tyrant ; neither husband nor wife may be 
treated as a thing. 

The 22d saying — "Whosoever would become 
great among you, shall be your minister " — is the 
law of priority based on service, and finds illustration 
also in the 27th concerning the chief seats. This 
law implies that the test of service to men is to be 
applied to every man and every institution, that 
honor goes not with special privilege, but with 
service rendered. 

The 28th saying, — " Be not anxious beforehand 
what ye shall speak," — with its assurance that the 
crisis hour may be awaited without anxiety, may 
be called the law of utterance out of the inner life. 
It is another form of Jesus' saying, " Out of the 
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." 
The best preparation for the hour of crisis is the 
true, faithful, Spirit-guided life, which shall fruit 
naturally into speech in that hour. 






THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 77 

The 31st saying — " Watch therefore " — is an- Law of 
other expression of the seriousness of life, and may watchfuI - 

r ' J ness. 

be called the law of vigilant watchfulness. That 
sense of the seriousness of life reflected in other 
sayings could not fail to register this protest 
against the ungirt life. 1 

If one attempts, now, to group logically all these Logics 
sayings, stated as laws of life, they may be brought g r ° u P in s of 
together under the heads : moral end, moral evi- 
dence, moral means. 

1. Moral end: the laws of the goal. 

As to the moral end, there is clearly to be rec- Faith in the 
ognized, in several of the sayings, an abiding faith ^e™<f h d ° f 
in the moral trend of the universe, in the triumph 
of the good. Stated in religious terms, this means 
for Jesus trust in the love of God as Father (12, 
18, 23, 24, 25, 28). For the consciousness of 
Jesus, it is further clear that the laws of the King- 
dom — the laws of life — depend on this faith in 
God as Father, in eternal love as the source and 
goal of the world. This is for him the best con- 

1 Even those of these doubly attested sayings that are not pri- 
marily ethical still include or involve also ethical convictions. The 
sayings concerning prayer, 23 and 24, imply faith in the triumph of 
the good. The saying concerning the forgiving spirit in prayer 
affirms the constant necessity of that spirit. The 29th saying, — 
"Let him that is on the housetop not come down," — if it is not 
to be regarded as merely a practical counsel for the time of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, is an insistence, like the 19th, upon the 
necessity of the sacrifice of relative goods. And the 30th saying — 
" If any man shall say unto you, Lo here is the Christ " — ex- 
presses Jesus' conviction that not external marvels, but inner appeal, 
is the evidence of the truth. 



?8 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

ceivable good news, and stated even in the bare 
ethical form of faith in the moral trend of the uni- 
verse, — in the triumph of the good, it is clear that 
it logically underlies all our highest endeavors of 
every kind. 1 For Jesus, clearly, this faith in God 
as Father, in love as source and goal of the world, 
carried with it the inevitable thought of the feasi- 
bility of a life of trust, peace, hope, growth ; and, 
not less, the obligation and privilege of a life of 
love like that of the Father. And the life of love 
could never be conceived by Jesus except as a life 
of practical service, the sharing with others of 
every good one had himself. 
Love the This necessary faith in love at the heart of the 

world seems itself to imply that the sum and end 
of our human life, too, must be found in love. 
This love finds its interpretation in Jesus' concep- 
tion of the love of God, and in its manifestation in 
his own life, culminating in the sacrifice of the 
cross. 2 This is definitely affirmed in the ist say- 

1 Cf. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, p. 237; 
Nash, Ethics and Revelation, pp. 50 ff., 144 ff., 173, 186, 215 ff., 230, 
243, 266; Shairp, Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, pp. 325, 328, 
335, 336; Dewey, Outlines of Ethics, p. 213; Dole, The Spirit of 
Democracy, pp. 410, 416; G. B. Foster, "Concerning the Religious 
Basis of Ethics," American Journal of Theology, April, 1908; 
Martensen, Christian Ethics, pp. 61 ff.; Murray, Handbook of Chris- 
tian Ethics, p. 3. 

2 Cf. Briggs, in Ethical Teaching of Jesus : " Godlike love," pp. 
97 ff . ; " Christlike love," pp. 1 14 ff . See also E. A. Abbott, Silanus 
the Christian, -pp. 355 ff.; Ecce Homo, pp. 56-57; Murray, Handbook 
of Christian Ethics, pp. 35, 36; Dale, Laws of Christ for Common 
Life, ch. IX, " The Grace of Christ the Law of Conduct," pp. 141 ff.; 



sum of 
life. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 79 

ing, and in the 26th, concerning the summary of 
the law in love, with which we have not dealt. In 
religious terms, this proposition would mean the 
doing of the will of God, or the sharing of the life 
of the Father. That such a love may be counted 
a sharing of the life of the Father means for Jesus 
that love is the sum and end of life, and this is 
either implied or distinctly asserted in several of 
these sayings. The service of love is above even 
the most sacred institution ( 1 ) ; it means courage- 
ous self-sacrifice (17; cf. 27); it means superiority 
in service (22; cf. 8); it means reverence for the 
person (21; cf. 18); it means everywhere the for- 
giving spirit (25); and it implies, of course, that 
there will be no stumbling of others (18). 

2. Moral evidence. 

Faith in the moral trend of the universe — in Fidelity to 
religious terms, trust in God — carries with it the S 1 ^ ^ neT 
being able to trust the inner appeal, the direct 
appeal to our own reason and conscience, to our 
"necessities of thought." God would not be faith- 
ful, the universe not truly rational, if we could 
not thus trust finally our own natures. This 
direct appeal to his hearer's own moral judgment, 
Jesus repeatedly makes in these sayings : " Is it 
lawful on the sabbath day to do good, or to do 
harm?" (1); "Is the lamp brought to be put 
under the bushel ? " (7) ; " If any man hath ears 

Bruce, The Kingdom of God, ch. X ; Haering, The Ethics of the 
Christian Life, pp. 156 ff., 178*?. Cf. Burkitt, op. cit., pp. 284 ff.; 
Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, vol. I, pp. 112-113. 



80 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

to hear, let him hear " (9). No sign is to be 
given to this generation that shall compel their 
belief ; they must rely upon the moral evidence 
(15, cf. 30). And, in the group of sayings, — 2, 3, 
4, — the Beelzebub section, it is plain that Jesus 
expects his teaching to have a kind of self-evi- 
dencing power. It is not to get its support from 
authority or labored argument; at the most he 
gives his hearers only a series of insights, and he 
insists most solemnly that no possible contempt 
of himself can compare in seriousness of sin with 
unfaithfulness to one's own best vision. 
3. Moral means. 

But many of these doubly attested sayings, it 
is plain, point rather to the means by which the 
moral life is to be developed, either in one's own 
life, or in relation to others, than explicitly either 
to the end or the evidence of the moral life. 
Unity, And for the inner life of the man himself, Jesus 

integrity, insists, in no uncertain terms, either expressly or 
inwardness impliedly, on the inescapable unity of this life 
(2, 3, 4, 19, 20; cf. 28). It is perhaps only to say 
the same thing in different terms, or to state 
the immediate consequences of the law of the 
unity of life, to say that Jesus brings not less 
surely into the foreground the principle of the 
necessity of absolute integrity of life, of truth 
to the inner vision (4, 19, 20, 7, 9, 28). 1 From 

1 This seems to be the chief insistence of Clark's The Christian 
Method of Ethics. The conception is of a life so related to God in 
Christ as instinctively and habitually to manifest itself aright in the 



of life. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 8 1 

this conception of the necessity of the integrity 
of life, there follows at once the demand for 
independence and inwardness in the moral life 

(i, 9. 4)- 1 

These three principles of Jesus — of the unity "The 
of life, the necessity of the complete integrity of r ?!? lon 
life, and of the inevitable independence and in- Spirit." 
wardness of the moral life — all plainly belong 
together, and they mark the point of sharpest 
contrast with the religious spirit of the times. 
It is here that Jesus sets " the religion of the 
Spirit " over against " the religions of authority," 
— his own teaching over against that of the Phari- 
sees. And it is just here, if Protestantism has any 
message for the world at all, that its message lies, 
as over against the message of Catholicism. 2 Jesus 
knows no moral or religious life that can be called 
genuine at all that is not the man's own, the ex- 
pression of his own insight and his own choice. 
He feels an element of pretense wherever the 
inner life takes on, as its own, what is not really 
so. One must see for himself, and he must choose 
for himself. 

This basic conception of the necessary inward- Earnestness 
ness of the moral and spiritual life inevitably de- f^ watch " 

r J fulness. 

mands from Jesus that deadly earnestness on his 

various situations of life. Cf. pp. 32, 53, 78, 108, 237, 241. Cf. 
Herrmann, Ethik, § 23, pp. 126 ft\, especially p. 127. 

1 Cf. Herrmann, Ethik, § 23, pp. I26ff.; Dunn, "The Romantic 
Element in the Ethics of Christ," Hibbert Journal, July, 1908. 

2 Cf. Herrmann, Faith and Morals, pp. 115 ff., 118 ff., 174 ff., 
262 ff.; Harnack, What is Christianity ?, pp. 268 ff. 
G 



82 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

part which we have noted, as to the seriousness 
of life, and leads him to require just such thorough- 
going earnestness in others. If it is true that, in 
order that there may be any spiritual life at all, it 
must be thorough, unified, and one's own, then 
nothing but thoroughgoing earnestness will suf- 
fice (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22). And out of this 
sense of the momentous seriousness of life grows, 
naturally, his demand for vigilant watchfulness 
(31 ; cf. 29). 
Laws of Jesus' statement of the laws of use and of habit, 

habit and — faaX one must use his powers or lose them 

efficiency. r 

(7, 8, n), and of the law of efficiency \ or of the 
simple life, — the sacrifice of the relative goods 
(17, 19, 29), are simply particular illustrations of 
this same earnestness, and indicate places at which 
watchfulness must be applied. 
The unity But Jesus' conception of the end of life as love, 

loving life ma -kes it clear that the unity of life sought is the 
unity of a loving life (1, [26] ) ; and this genuinely 
and thoroughly loving life requires complete denial 
of the selfish life (17). And all these demands on 
the individual life may be derived from love : love 
is thoroughgoing, taking on every obligation of 
love, hence the unity and integrity of life ; love 
must be absolutely genuine, from the heart, hence, 
the inwardness of life ; love, therefore, cannot 
help being in earnest, and consequently watchful 
for opportunity and against failure ; love, therefore, 
demands expression in obedience, in the law of use 
and habit ; whatever interferes with the best ser- 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 83 

vice and expression of love must go, hence the law 
of efficiency and simplicity. 

Jesus' ideal for the individual, thus, involves The ideal 
complete unity of life, absolute integrity of life, ^.^ 
moral independence and inwardness, earnestness, 
vigilant watchfulness, simplicity, and efficiency, and 
the life of unselfish love. 

In relation to others} this same sense of the in relation 
momentous seriousness of life, as the saying on to ot ers * 
the stumbling of others indicates, still pervades all, 
and calls for obedience to the law of contagion of 
the good (10, 20), to the law of sacrifice, of self- 
giving love (1, 17), to the law of reverence for the 
person ([6], 14, 15, 18), to the law of priority by 
service (22; cf. 27), and to the law of the sharing 
of all goods (14). 

The thoroughgoing unity of the whole moral The unity 
conception of Jesus, as reflected in these doubly of th< : whole 

. J moral con- 

attested sayings, may be thus brought out : Jesus ception of 

seeks a genuine moral and spiritual life for every ^ esus ' 

man that shall be truly his own, the fruit of his 

own insight, of his own choice. To the mind of 

Jesus there is no moral and spiritual life at all inwardness 

without this. He must, therefore, demand of all, and , mde " 

pendence. 

even with reference to himself, inwardness and in- 
dependence of moral and spiritual life (in the sense 
of being one's own, not in the sense of ignoring 
others, or cutting himself off from others). Jesus 
is certain, that is, that neither God nor man can 

J Cf. Macfadyen, "Social Theories and the Teaching of Jesus," 
Expository Times, February, 1908, p. 222. 



candor. 



84 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

hand over insights and choices of good, as so much 
dead, passive property, to another. In this sphere, 
therefore, nothing can be achieved simply by au- 
thority, nothing is merely external, nothing is laid 
on from without ; all is necessarily a growth from 
within. 
Absolute But if the man of the right life (the disciple of 

Jesus) is to be absolutely true to the inner vision, 
he needs to see straight ; and that will require, in 
the next place, that he be honest, candid, open- 
minded, humble or teachable, free from prejudice. 
That is, he must have what we moderns call the 
scientific spirit. He must not declare against a 
manifest good work as due to evil. There will be 
no end of self-stultification if he starts on that 
course. Only utter inner moral confusion could 
result. He would have no insights that he could 
trust ; having played fast and loose with his moral 
judgment, he could not rely upon it (2, 3, 4). Just 
as the scientist's one desire is to get at the exact 
facts, and just as he has the wholesome sense that 
any furthering of his pet theory in the end could 
be of no avail against the facts, so the disciple of 
the righteous life has one sole desire, — to know 
the truth (or, in religious language, to know and 
do the will of God), to learn to live the life of love, 
to follow Jesus as the master of the ideal life, with- 
out prejudice, without willfulness, with no trace 
of falseness. All these — prejudice, willfulness, 
falseness — would only hinder the disciple's one 
great end. 



THE DOUBLY ATTESTED SAYINGS 85 

Now the one desire to know and do the truth, Conditions 
to do the true and right thing (to do the will of ^™ r 
God), in itself gives great singleness of vision. 1 insight. 
And a truly loving life has, moreover, deep instinc- 
tive insights. The humble, unprejudiced, deeply 
earnest life has a right to expect, therefore, the 
needed clearness of inner vision ; for his very single- 
ness of aim assures the single eye, 2 and the ear- 
nestly loving life will have in that very love a further 
guard against erring insight. 

All this, then, clearly demands, from the man Earnestness, 
who is to have an inner spiritual life and to be able watchful - 

. . x ness, open- 

tO trust his inner vision, to trust his moral insights, mindedness. 

earnestness, — that is, the conviction that life means 
something, is thoroughly worth while, and that there 
is law in it; and vigilant watchfulness ; and honest, 
candid, humble, ofien-mindedness, — that is, the 
scientific qualities. So, and only so, can come a 
justified trust in the inner vision, and truth to the 
inner vision. 

When the ethical inferences from the doubly at- Conclusion, 
tested sayings are compared with the ethical em- 
phases in the Schmiedel passages, 3 it will be seen 
that every one of those ethical emphases appears 
again in the doubly attested sayings. And, in both 
cases, it is not merely subsidiary but plainly basic, 
moral principles, which come into view. This 
ethical agreement of two groups of undoubtedly 

1 Cf. John 5 : 30; Drummond, The Ideal Life, pp. 302 ff. 

2 Cf. Matt. 6 : 22-23. 

3 See pp. 46-47. 



86 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

authentic sayings of Jesus, originally selected from 
different and even contrasted points of view, is 
significant, and gives assurance that in these pas- 
sages we have a secure foundation for the study 
of the ethics of Jesus. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK AND IN THE 
OTHER COMMON SOURCE OF MATTHEW AND 
LUKE. THE OLDEST SOURCES. 

From the bird's-eye view of the entire teaching 
of Jesus in Luke, from the ethical notes in Schmie- 
del's "foundation-pillar" passages, and from the 
laws of life discerned in the doubly attested say- 
ings, we turn now, in seeking our composite photo- 
graph of the teaching, to the writings recognized 
as in all probability the oldest and most certain 
sources for the life and teaching of Jesus as a 
whole, — the Gospel of Mark, and the other com- 
mon source of Matthew and Luke, called Q. And 
we are first to take up the ethical teaching in Q, 
building upon Harnack's reconstruction of that 
document. 

I. The ethical teaching in Q. 

It is hardly too much to say that in Q we prob- Estimate 
ably have an even older source for the life and 
teaching of Jesus than in Mark. 1 Harnack's own 
conclusions as to the value of Q are indicated in 
these sentences : " If we consider Q apart from its 
introduction (sections I and 2), we see at once that 
we are dealing with a document of the highest 

1 Cf. Harnack, The Sayings of Jesus, pp. 193 ff., 220 ft, 246 ff., 
especially 226-228, 246-249. 

87 



of Q. 



88 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

antiquity — there is here no need of proof; but even 
if we take into our view Q together with the intro- 
duction, there is little difference in the final verdict." 
" Q, a compilation of sayings originally written in 
Aramaic (vide Wellhausen, Nestle, and others), be- 
longs to the apostolic epoch. This is shown by 
its form and contents, nor can I discern any reasons 
for a contrary opinion." " But whoever the author, 
or rather the redactor, of Q may have been, he was 
a man deserving of the highest respect. To his 
reverence and faithfulness, to his simple-minded 
common sense, we owe this priceless compilation 
of the sayings of Jesus." 1 The entire extent of 
Q as reconstructed by Harnack is 201 verses. The 
order of the sayings, in his judgment, is not in any 
case specially significant and is usually doubtful, 
and certainly is not material for our study of the 
ethical teaching. 2 Matthew's form of the sayings 
in Q is probably, all things considered, to be pre- 
ferred in most cases to that of Luke, 3 and our dis- 
cussion will follow Matthew's version. 4 

1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 246, 247-248, 249. Cf. von Soden, 
History of Early Christian Literature, pp. 129 ff.; Jiilicher, An 
Introduction to the New Testament, p. 358. 

2 Cf. Harnack, op. cit., pp. 171, 178-179. 

3 Cf. Harnack, op. cit., pp. xii, 37, 180 note; Wernle, The 
Sources of our Knowledge of the Life of Jesus, p. 142; Bacon, 
Introduction to the New Testament, p. 203. 

4 The teaching passages in Q in Matthew's order include, in 
Harnack's reconstruction, Jesus' replies in the temptation narrative; 
58 out of 97 verses of Matthew's version of the Sermon on the 
Mount; and then a series of longer and shorter sayings in chapters 
8 to 25 in Matthew; the incident of the scribe and another who 



I 




THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 89 

Omitting all narrative, all the non-ethical, all the The 
passages already covered, and all passages from q^IS "* 
the Sermon on the Mount, the sayings in Q to be studied. 

would follow Jesus (Matt. 8 : 19-22) ; the saying as to the plenteous 
harvest (Matt. 9 : 37-38) ; 23 verses in the discourse on the com- 
mission of the Twelve (Matt. 10 : 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 24-40); 
considerable parts of the discourse as to John the Baptist, the up- 
braiding of the cities, and the great thanksgiving (Matt. 11 : 2-13, 
16-27); the Beelzebub section and the denial of a sign (Matt. 
12 : 25, 27-30, 32, 33, 38-45) ; the saying " Blessed are your eyes," 
and the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (Matt. 13 :i6- 
17, 31-33); the short sayings, — "If the blind lead the blind" 
(Matt. 15 : 14), and " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed" 
(Matt. 17: 20); various sayings in the 1 8th chapter, — "occasions 
of stumbling," the parable of the lost sheep, " If thy brother sin, 
how oft forgive" (Matt. 18: 7, 12, 13, 15, 21, 22); "Ye shall sit 
on twelve thrones" (Matt. 19:28); "the publicans and harlots 
believed him" (John) (Matt. 21 : 32); the parable of the marriage of 
the king's son (Matt. 22: 2-1 1) (doubtful); 11 verses giving the 
"woes" on the Pharisees (Matt. 23:4, 12, 13, 23, 25-39); and 17 
verses from the eschatological discourse (Matt. 24:26-28, 37-41, 
43-51), and the parable of the talents (Matt. 25 : 14-30) (doubtful). 

In other words, the teaching sections in Q, as given in Matthew's 
form, may be said to include the temptation replies of Jesus; the 
Sermon on the Mount; considerable parts of grouped sayings of 
Matthew, — the commission of the Twelve in chapter 10, the dis- 
course on John the Baptist, etc., in chapter 11, the "woes" on the 
Pharisees in chapter 23, and the eschatological discourse in chapter 
24; the three parables of the mustard seed, the leaven, and the 
lost sheep; and "perhaps " the two parables of the marriage of the 
king's son, and of the talents: the sayings in the Beelzebub section 
and the sign denied, in chapter 12; and nine other short sayings. 

In the list of the passages so given, for our present discussion we 
may omit, in the first place, those already covered in the discussion 
of Schmiedel and of the doubly attested sayings. This will enable 
us to leave out of present consideration the commission, proper, of 
the Twelve in chapter 10, the first part of the discourse on John the 



90 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

taken up for present consideration are the follow- 
ing, as arranged in the order of Matthew : — 

1. Matt. 4: 4, 7, 10. The temptation replies. 

2. Matt. 8: 19-22. "The foxes have holes, 11 etc. "Leave 

the dead to bury their own dead." 

3. Matt. 10 : 24-39. " A disciple is not above his teacher, 11 

etc. " Be not afraid of them that kill the body, 11 etc. 
"Think not that I am come to send peace, 11 etc. 

4. Matt. 11 : 16-19. The children in the market places. 

5. Matt. 15 : 14. " If the blind guide the blind, 11 etc. 

6. Matt. 18: 12-13, 15, 21-22. Parable of the lost sheep. 

" Shew him his fault between thee and him alone," etc. 
" How oft forgive." 

7. Matt. 21 : 32. " The publicans and harlots believed him " 

(John). 

8. Matt. 22:2-11. Parable of the marriage of the king^ 

son. (Doubtful.) 

9. Matt. 23 : 4, 12, 13, 23, 25-36. Denunciation of the 

Pharisees. 
10. Matt. 25 : 14-30. Parable of the talents. (Doubtful.) 

Baptist, all the passages in chapter 12, the parable of the mustard 
seed, with which perhaps the parable of the leaven may be taken, and 
the short sayings, — " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed " 
(Matt. 17 : 20), and as to "occasions of stumbling" (Matt. 18: 7). 
The Sermon on the Mount, also, is deferred for later, separate con- 
sideration. For our special study of the ethical teaching of Jesus, all 
purely eschatological passages, and those bearing on the person and 
special claims of Christ, of which there are many (cf. Harnack's 
list, The Sayings of Jesus, pp. 235 ff.), also may be omitted. This 
would leave out of consideration the saying concerning the twelve 
thrones, which Harnack regards as doubtfully belonging to Q in 
any case, all the eschatological discourse in chapter 24, the dis- 
course as to John the Baptist (Matt. 11 : 2-13), the " woes " to the 
cities (11 : 20-24), the great thanksgiving (11 : 25-27), two verses 
in the 10th chapter (15 and 40), the saying " Blessed are your 
eyes" (13:16-17), and the saying as to the plenteous harvest 
(9:37-38). 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q Cjl 

It should be carefully borne in mind that these 
passages must be supplemented by the doubly 
attested sayings and by a large part of the Sermon 
on the Mount, to get a true impression of the en- 
tire ethical teaching in Q. 

In the study of this special material in Q, we The back- 
turn naturally, first of all, to Jesus' replies in the ^tempta- 
narrative of the temptation. As Professor Bacon tions. 
has pointed out, 1 the temptation narrative is probably 
the surest bit of autobiography that comes to us 
from Jesus, and his replies are particularly signifi- 
cant as indicating his point of view from the begin- 
ning of his public ministry. Even in Q it seems 
probable that these temptations of Jesus come at a 
time when he has definitely left his private life be- 
hind him, and follow the special experience of the 
baptism, in which he had received, in some way, 
assurance of his divine sonship, with all that that 
must mean of mission and power. It seems plain 
that this threefold consciousness of Jesus — of son- 
ship, of divine mission, and of its implied power — 
determines the form, the meaning, and the appeal 
of the temptations. They gather about the ques- 
tions now pressing so irresistibly upon him : what 
does it mean to be the Son of God ? what exactly 
is my mission ? how may I use the power involved ? 2 

The elements of this threefold consciousness — jesus' 
of power, of mission, and of sonship — are for 

1 American Journal of Theology, July, 1898. 
2 Cf. Sanday, art. "Jesus Christ," H. D. B., p. 612; Fairbairn, 
The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, pp. 349 ff. 



answers. 



9 2 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



No abuse of 
trust. 



Spiritual 
sensitiveness. 



No relief in 
change of 
circum- 
stances. 



Jesus a divine call, to which he makes answer : I 
must be worthy of the power granted ; I must be a 
consistent founder of a spiritual kingdom ; I must 
prove a true son. And one cannot be a consistent 
founder of a spiritual kingdom, it is to be noted, 
except upon three conditions : constant spiritual 
sensitiveness, undying faith in men, and refusal to 
seek relief in change of circumstances rather than 
in change of self. 

Each of the temptations of Jesus, thus, from 
one point of view, was a temptation to the abuse 
of trust, and, to all alike, his answer is simply the 
insistence that his power is given him for the sake 
of the kingdom. It is a great trust, and not to 
be used for any personal advantage. 

And if one is never to abuse his trust, he may 
not fall below his highest spiritual sensitiveness. 
This was the only way of deliverance for Jesus 
himself. He needed the clearest spiritual insight, 
to see the meaning of his trust, to see that, as 
founder of a spiritual kingdom calling to funda- 
mental love and self-sacrifice, he must fight as his 
disciples ; he cannot himself refuse to live the un- 
selfish life, to share the common lot. 

He may not, therefore, in the third place, escape 
hard situations by changing the circumstances. This 
is neither the road to character, nor is it one in 
which he can call others to walk. " Man doth not 
live by bread alone." His victory must be inner, 
not outer. 

Jesus' answers to these temptations, again, were 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 93 

the resistance, from another point of view, of the Faith in 
temptation to disbelief in men ; for all three forms men- 
of his temptation urge the advisability of begin- 
ning with the lower appeal, the appeal either to 
men's bodily needs, or to their love of the marvel- 
ous, or to their sense of fear. And in repudiating 
wholly the primary claim of any of these lower 
appeals, Jesus affirms his deep faith in men. He 
will have no kingdom simply by bread, nor by 
marvel and ecstasy, nor by force. He will be fol- 
lowed by those who follow him for his own sake, 
because of his inner appeal. Once more, " Man 
doth not live by bread alone." 

And, finally, Jesus' answers here are the resist- Faith in 
ance of the temptation to distrust of God. For when 
one believes that there is no possibility of using 
effectively with men purely moral and spiritual 
forces, he disbelieves not only in men, but he 
shows an even deeper distrust in the character of 
God. And Jesus knew that if he was to be a con- 
sistent builder of a genuinely spiritual kingdom, 
he must be willing to use the highest means, and 
trust the results with God. He must not demand 
from God victory on some lower terms. " Thou 
shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God." " Thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only 
shalt thou serve." 

Since the doubly attested sayings are all, in Three 
Burkitt's view, contained in Q, it is evident that ^gufd/dis- 
we should find expressed in Q all those laws of cussion. 
life, which, in the last chapter, were derived from 



94 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Contrast 
with 

Pharisaic 
spirit. 



The reason 
for Jesus' 
position. 



the doubly attested sayings. To these we need 
not return. But in the ethical passages listed 
from Q, outside of the Sermon on the Mount and 
the temptation replies just considered, there are 
three thoughts more fully developed than in the 
briefer statements of the doubly attested sayings : 
the contrast with the Pharisaic spirit, the necessity 
of sympathetic and tender forgiveness, and the 
sense of the seriousness of life. And these three 
recurring ethical notes may guide the discussion of 
the passages selected from Q. 

i. These sayings in Q, as reported by Matthew, 
bring out with special sharpness the sense of the 
contrast of his message and spirit with that of the 
Pharisees ; for Q includes not only the passages 
of this kind already considered, but many of those 
sayings of direct denunciation of the Pharisaic 
spirit which Matthew has grouped in his 23d 
chapter. That is, Q brings out not only that 
Jesus himself conceived his message as contrasted 
with the prevalent religious spirit of his time, but 
sets forth with some precision the points of con- 
trast as they lie in his mind. 

One can hardly doubt that the remarkable study 
of moral blindness, which Luke gives in the group- 
ing of passages in his chapter 1 1, 1 furnishes at least 
the true psychological setting for these denuncia- 
tions of the Pharisaic spirit. It evidently seems 
to Jesus that he may not evade the conflict, or 
allow the issue to be disguised ; his position must 

1 See pp. 23-24. 




THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 95 

be decisively discriminated from the religious spirit 
of his time, for he feels that they have betrayed 
the very sanctuary of religion. In their moral 
blindness they cannot see the real values involved. 
That is to say, the reason for Christ's indignant 
vehemence here is found in the fact that he feels 
that, in this self-perverted vision, he faces the 
possibility of utter spiritual ruin, where the very 
conscience that should prompt to right urges wrong 
and justifies itself as right, where the man can 
give pious reasons for shameless moral apostasy. 
The text of all might be said to be the saying in 
the parallel passage in Luke, " Look therefore 
whether the light that is in thee be not darkness." 

To take these denunciatory sayings (Matt. 23 : Shutting 
4, 12, 13, 23, 25-36) 1 in the order in which Harnack g^ST 
believes that they occurred in Q, Jesus is here set- 
ting in contrast with his own moral and spiritual 
demand, first, the spirit that satisfies itself with 
deducing theoretically the heavy burdens of the 
law for others, but excuses itself from any prac- 
tical undertaking of these burdens, — the danger, 
always, of the professional reformer, the theo- 
retical moralist, the exegete, or the theologian. 
"They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be 
borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they 
themselves will not move them with their finger " 
(Matt. 23 14). This is the spirit that, by its in- 
terpretation of the truth, turns men away from the 
path of righteousness, while it makes no attempt 

1 Cf. Ecu Homo, pp. 286 ff. ; Bruce, The Kingdom of God, ch. VIII. 



g6 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

to enter itself. " Ye shut the kingdom of heaven 
against men : for ye enter not in yourselves, neither 
surfer ye them that are entering in to enter" (Matt. 
23 : 13). The real content and truth of righteous- 
ness, Jesus believes, in the teaching at least of 
many of the Pharisees, was obscured and hid- 
den, rather than brought forth into the light. 
Making The spirit which Jesus here denounces is, too, 

uty petty. ^^ w ] 1 j c j 1 ma fc es d u ty petty and nagging, neces- 
sarily destitute of the great enthusiasms, of judg- 
ment and mercy, and begets only an anxious 
abiding by little rules. " Ye tithe mint and anise 
and cummin, and have left undone the weightier 
matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith " 
(Matt. 23 : 23). Jesus is here protesting against 
the danger of those petty enactments that were 
originally in all good faith intended by the Pharisee 
to protect the law of righteousness, 1 but are so 
likely to become a substitute for that law. The 
whole history of asceticism justifies the protest 
which here he makes. Men have always been 
prone to seek out petty self-crucifixions to be put 
in place of the plain and common demands of 
everyday human relations, — to tithe with much 
painstaking and self-satisfaction the herbs of the 
back kitchen garden — mint and anise and caraway 
seed — and feel no remorse for rank injustice and 
the constantly unmerciful spirit. This criticism of 
Jesus is precisely like that which is being made 

1 Mathews, A History of New Testament Times in Palestine, 
pp. 64 ff. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 97 

to-day of overtechnical interpretations of the law 
by the aid of great lawyers, that enable the real 
ends of the law to be evaded; and he is demand- 
ing that the lawyers of every period should have 
the sense of being put in trust with the weighty 
ends of the law, — justice and mercy; and not 
with the mere study of technicalities for personal 
gain. 

Jesus here protests, also, against the punctilious Carelessness 
care for the outside ; for that which shall appear in °* ir \ t e mner 
the sight of men, when one does not care that the 
inner spirit of the life is intemperate and tyran- 
nical. He knows no life that penetrates from 
without in, but only the life that grows from within 
out. "Ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of 
the platter, but within they are full from extortion 
and excess" (Matt. 23:25). "Woe unto you! 
for ye are as tombs which appear not, and the 
men that walk over them know it not" (Luke 
n : 44; cf. Matt. 23 : 27). 

These verses are only another evidence of the The inevi- 
constant insistence of Jesus upon the necessary in- * able , 

J . . - inwardness 

wardness of the moral and spiritual life. He fears of life. 
nothing for men more than that, stopping with the 
outward requirements of the religious life, with 
respectability in the sight of men, they should 
forget altogether the absolute necessity of inner 
integrity, of life within. He cannot forget the 
awful danger of these men about him, so absorbed 
in punctilious observances, that quite unwittingly 
it should be true of them that they shall be like 



98 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

tombs that have been whitened, " which outwardly 
appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead 
men's bones, and of all uncleanness " (Matt. 23 : 
27). With his deep conviction of the inevitable 
inwardness of life, I suppose that this simile of the 
whitened tomb or of the grave over which men 
walked and knew it not, had burned itself into his 
soul again and again, as one of the awful possibil- 
ities of life. It is in no mere spirit of denuncia- 
tion, therefore, I suppose, that he speaks these 
awful words ; but rather out of deep consciousness 
of the need of the searching warning of the 
prophet, whose words must get home to lives 
deadened the more to the appeal to conscience, 
because content in religious observance. And, if 
these themselves may not be reached, he would at 
least save others from following them in their peril 
of wreck of character. 
Tradition- It is only another part of the possible and 

ahsm versus aw f u i consequences of the same spirit of self- 
present in- x r 
sight. deception that leads him to add, " Ye build the 

sepulchres of the prophets and say, If we had been 
in the days of our fathers, we should not have 
been partakers with them in the blood of the 
prophets. Wherefore ye bear witness to your- 
selves, that ye are sons of them that slew the 
prophets!" (Matt. 23:29-31). For this, too, 
is a danger of the whole external conception of 
the moral and spiritual life. Men can regard 
themselves in all honesty as rendering honor to 
the prophets of the former time, — an honor which 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 99 

has now become conventional, traditional, and re- 
spectable ; while at the same time they have no 
ear for the message of the prophet that to-day 
would search their heart, and no willingness to 
obey that message. The very fact that they are 
traditional followers of the former prophets makes 
them dead to the voice of the living prophet. 

In harmony with this sense of the contrast of 
his message and spirit with that of the Pharisees, 
there is to be seen here, once more, his insistence 
upon the inevitable inwardness and independence 
of the moral and spiritual life, in the succinct sar- 
casm of the saying, "If the blind guide the blind, 
both shall fall into a pit" (Matt. 15 : 14). 

2. The sympathetic and forgiving tenderness 1 Seeking and 
which Jesus asks from the man of the righteous J or s mn s 
life, aside from the passages still to be considered 
in the Sermon on the Mount, comes out in Q, 
especially in three sayings which Matthew gathers 
in the 18th chapter. Thus, in the parable of the 
lost sheep, there is the implied demand upon man 
for a like spirit in the relation of man to man as is 
here ascribed to God, the spirit which does not only 
barely forgive, but must seek out and rejoice over 
the reconciliation and return of even the least 

1 Cf. Bethune-Baker, art. "Forgiveness," H. D. B., p. 56: "So 
closely indeed is the principle associated with the teaching and 
work of Christ that forgiveness has been called ' Christ's most strik- 
ing innovation in morality ' and the phrase ' a Christian spirit ' is 
commonly regarded as synonymous with the disposition of readiness 
to forgive an injury." Cf. also Ecce Homo, pp. 303 ff., 310-312, 318, 
322. 



unlimited 
forgiveness. 



100 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

worthy (18 : 12-13). The saying, "If thy brother 
sin against thee, go, show him his fault between 
thee and him alone : if he hear thee, thou hast 
gained thy brother" (v. 15), reveals peculiarly 
Jesus' sense of the sacredness of the person and 
the value of the brother, in his tender suggestion 
that even the one sinned against is to seek out the 
other, that the matter is to be between the two 
alone, and in the reminder that in thus bringing one 
back from his sin, one has "gained his brother," 
— has not only restored the relation, that is, for 
himself, but won the brother back into life. 
The duty of The duty of unlimited forgiveness is expressed 
even more clearly in Jesus' answer to the question 
of Peter, "How oft shall my brother sin against 
me, and I forgive him ? until seven times ? " " I 
say not unto thee, Until seven times ; but, Until 
seventy times seven" (18:21-22). The parallel 
passage in Luke (17:3-4) has also prefaced this 
saying with another, " If thy brother sin, rebuke 
him ; and if he repent, forgive him." Taken to- 
gether, these sayings plainly teach, on the one 
hand, that for the disciple of the true life there can 
be no limit in the forgiving spirit. On the other 
hand, the command to " rebuke " sets forth the 
duty of holding the other to his best, of reminding 
him that he has done that which is not worthy of 
him, — the duty to be no flatterers, spoiling our 
friends and ministering to their weaknesses, but to 
prove ourselves able to give the faithful " wounds 
of a friend." There is, of course, involved in this 




THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 10 1 

duty of rebuke the corresponding willingness on 
one's own part to take rebuke, patiently to hear, 
candidly to consider, and, if the case demands, 
honestly to amend. The clause, " If he repent, 
forgive him," is no excuse for cherishing the un- 
forgiving spirit, but the recognition of the fact that 
one person alone cannot restore the relation be- 
tween two ; but the forgiving spirit is, nevertheless, 
imperative always, whether the other repents or 
not, as the insistence on the duty of unlimited 
forgiveness implies. That is, the true disciple 
stands always ready to restore the relation, where- 
ever and whenever possible. 

3. The strongest emphasis in these passages The serious- 
selected from Q is that upon the seriousness of life, ness o£ llfe * 
and often recurs. 

At the same time it should be noted that with Not ascetic, 
this dominating sense of the momentous serious- 
ness of life, there is, in the teaching of Jesus here, 
a definite setting aside of the merely ascetic spirit, 
in the contrast he makes between his spirit and 
that of John the Baptist, in the application of the 
parable of the children in the marketplace (Matt. 
11 : 16-19), "The Son of man came eating and 
drinking." This combination in Jesus of the earnest 
with the anti-ascetic spirit is always to be kept in 
view, and it is one of the evidences of the clearness 
and sanity of his ethical judgment. 

To take up in detail the passages upon the seri- Counting 
ousness of life, it may first be noted that the re- the cost 
plies to the scribe and to another who would follow 



102 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 






him, like a similar passage in Luke (14: 28-33), 
show how clearly Jesus wished those who were to 
follow him to count the cost. "The foxes have 
holes, and the birds of heaven have nests ; but the 
Son of man hath not where to lay his head," is 
meant to bring home to the scribe that the call of 
Jesus is no easy-going one, but a heroic one, — a 
call to self-sacrifice, a call which in its very nature 
is intended to sift men. They were to count the 
cost of following from the beginning, and still to 
choose to follow with all their hearts. In the an- 
swer to the other who would follow him, — "Leave 
the dead to bury their own dead," — Jesus is prob- 
ably making use of a common proverb * to set 
aside what he feels to be an evasive excuse on the 
part of the man. This facility in making excuses, 
in deceiving oneself into believing that one is loyal 
to a cause while he excuses himself from its ser- 
vice, Jesus cuts in on by this reply. The disciple 
of the right life takes on at once new and tran- 
scendent claims. There can be no indefinite defer- 
ring of obedience to those claims ; one is to act in 
the new life, and according to its spirit, and let the 
dead past bury its dead. 
The risks The saying, " Behold, I send you forth as sheep 

righteous * n ^ e m idst of wolves " (10 : 16) is a recognition of 
life. the risks and difficulty of the mission of the man 

who has determined to live the right life, who is 
trying to make another spirit than the selfish one 
prevail in the world. Jesus does not shut his own 

1 Cf. D. Smith, art. " Proverbs," D. C. G. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 103 

eyes, and he means that his disciples shall not shut 
theirs, to the inevitable conflict of aims between 
the selfish life of the world and that genuinely un- 
selfish love to which he calls. 

In the saying, "A disciple is not above his Motives to 
teacher" (10:24-25 a), Jesus is insisting that the J^ceHke 
same spirit of self-sacrifice which he has held him- that of Jesus, 
self bound to show, must hold for every disciple of 
the righteous life. All are to manifest the same 
characteristics and to expect like experiences with 
him. Their lives are to be lived upon the same 
principle and are to evince the same service. Ex- 
periences like his, therefore, they are to expect, 
to count on ; by them they are not to be dismayed. 
They are to be prepared for opposition. Jesus 
never anywhere teaches that the righteous life 
means exemption from hard things. But he does 
assure his disciples that the true spirit will save 
them from the greatest disaster, the only one that 
is really to be feared, utter wreck of life (10: 26- 
33). "Fear them not therefore: for there is 
nothing covered, that shall not be revealed " ; and 
" Be not afraid of them that kill the body." If 
you are right and true, he is here saying in sub- 
stance, you may be glad to have the truth come 
out; you have no occasion to fear it; and the 
truth will out, be sure (v. 26). Moreover, your vic- 
tory is the victory of truth ; speak out boldly, 
therefore, the message that is given you (v. 27). 
Your adversaries, at the worst, without your own 
consent, can only destroy the body ; the real thing 



104 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

to be feared is not death of the body, but the 
triumph of temptation in the loss of the real 
meaning of life (v. 28). And out of his religious 
faith he adds, You can be sure of the loving 
knowledge of the Father who knows and cares ; 
he has not forgotten, though it may so seem (vv. 
29-31); though here, too, it is to be noted there is 
no promise of exemption from trial. And even the 
purely ethical teacher, as we have seen, must build 
on a similar faith in the ethical trend of the uni- 
verse and in the ultimate triumph of the good. 
He, too, will have a faith answering somewhat 
to Jesus' further assurance that faithful loyalty 
shall be owned, even in the presence of God, while 
disloyalty can have no such reward ; it can only be 
disowned before the Father (vv. 32-33). 
Duty's Matthew's next paragraph also (vv. 34-39) em- 

absolute phasizes this same sense of the earnestness of 

claim. r 

the righteous life, — " Think not that I came to 
send peace on the earth." In this paragraph 
Jesus is virtually calling attention to the ethical 
principle that duty makes an absolute claim, and 
will necessarily divide in spirit those who will 
obey from those who will not. The disciple of 
the truth must face whatever of hardship and 
separation, even from the dearest, is involved in 
loyalty to truth and righteousness as they are 
proclaimed in his own heart. 
The great The whole teaching upon the earnestness of the 

para ° righteous life may perhaps be regarded as summed 

up in Jesus' great paradox, that must often have 






THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 105 

recurred in his teaching, given in the 39th verse, 
— " He that findeth his life shall lose it ; and he 
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it," — 
the great principle of life through death, of self- 
development through self-surrender, of the life of 
love through the giving up of the selfish life, of a 
life that is like that of the self- giving God as the 
only true life. 

As has been indicated, Harnack does not feel 
certain that the parables of the marriage of the 
king's son, and of the talents, were found in Q ; 
but as there seems no good reason to deny them a 
place in the teaching of Jesus, they may be fitly 
considered here. 

The parable of the marriage of the king's son Blind in- 
(22: 2-1 1) expresses Jesus' sense of the folly of f^thegreat 
the strange indifference of men to the greatest values. 
values of life. Without crowding the parable into 
detailed application, Jesus is clearly asserting upon 
the ethical side two closely related truths : first, 
the strange indifference of some of the most privi- 
leged to the greatest values of life ; and, second, 
that these values are for those who care, not for 
those "bidden" by natural opportunity and a kind 
of inherent privilege, but for those who feel the 
sense of need, who care ; it is to these that the 
values of life are open. On the one hand, then, 
Jesus is illustrating here the strange and blind 
indifference to the greatest values, whether it be 
found in those simply engrossed in other things, 
or in those who suffer from the stupefying effect 



106 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

of material prosperity, or from what Professor 
Peabody has called " spiritual satiety," " living on 
a kind of left-over morality," who do not prize the 
truth because they have not fought for it, who 
have not made it their own, to live and to die for. 
For such any excuse will do, for they do not really 
care. And yet how strange and blind this indif- 
ference to the greatest, this curious obsession of 
the passionate pursuit of trifles, as over against 
enthusiasm for the highest aims, for a life abun- 
dant, abiding, eternal, because it is of such quality 
that it cannot pass. 
The King- The great values of life belong, Jesus insists 

those who ner e, in the second place, not to those who do not 
care. care, for whom any excuse will do, but only to 

those who care. There is no value for a man 
where he does not care. Is there anything, then, 
for which one cares greatly, concerning which 
he has great affections, strong interests, enduring 
enthusiasm, where indignation is deeply stirred? 
Has one awakened to what "the summoner's call" 
to life really means ? For he may be sure that 
the Kingdom is for those who care, only for those 
who care. 

Once again, then, here is seen in strong colors 
Jesus' sense of the need of downright earnestness 
of spirit. 
Parable of The parable of the talents, also, emphasizes 

the talents. j esus » se nse of the seriousness of life from a 
slightly different point of view. Back of the 
parable which, as Bruce says, is almost an alle- 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN Q 10/ 

gory, lie a series of plain truths. First of all, that 
life and all its powers are a trust given to all. 
This is exactly the conception that is taking hold 
on men to-day as never before, that their calling 
is a social and a divine trust ; and where this has 
been forgotten, there has been sordid selfishness, 
if not flaunting injustice and neglect. The par- 
able brings out, also, the varying degrees of dili- 
gence in use of opportunity, and the reward of 
still larger trusts in proportion to that diligence. 
The parable expresses, as well, Jesus' sense of the 
pitiful and blameworthy failure of the life that is 
willing to be simply useless, a barren life, a cum- 
berer of the ground, having a spirit like that set 
forth in the parable of the barren fig tree in Luke. 

In the ethical teaching in Q, outside the Sermon Conclusion 
on the Mount, there are to be found, then, the laws on Q* 
of life, seen in the doubly attested sayings, to- 
gether with the clear vision of life's fundamental 
temptations, shown in the Temptation replies of 
Jesus, and the three special emphases, — contrast 
with the Pharisaic spirit, the necessity of sympa- 
thetic and tender forgiveness, and the sense of the 
seriousness of life. These results confirm and en- 
large the conclusions of the previous studies. The 
Temptation replies show, as truly now as the day 
they were spoken, the spirit in which all high work 
must be conceived, and the conditions by which 
alone it can be carried to success. They are a 
single application of Jesus' fundamental principles, 
as brought out in "the laws of life," while the 



io8 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Outline of 
the entire 
teaching in 
Mark. 



three special emphases make still more clear the 
depth and breadth of his ethical vision. 

II. The ethical teaching in Mark. 

In turning to the ethical teaching in Mark, the 
second of the oldest sources, it may be worth while, 
first of all, to see that teaching against the back- 
ground of a summary statement of the entire 
teaching in Mark. The entire teaching in Mark 
may be thus grouped according to the great divi- 
sions of the book. 1 



I. The proclamation of the Kingdom. I : 14-4 : 34. 

1. The highest good ; life for all on spiritual conditions. 

1 : 14-15. 

2. His method ; the good seed ; the children of the 

Kingdom. 1 : 17. Cf. 3 : 13-19. 

3. His motive and goal : love and the civilization of the 

loving life. 2:17. Cf. 1 : 38. 

4. His revolutionary relation to the older epoch. 

2 : 19-3 : 6. 

1) The new spirit of rejoicing sonship is too great 

for any of the old forms. The parables of the 
undressed cloth and of the new wine-skins. 
2 : 19-22. 

2) A revolution at the center and climax of the in- 

stitutional system, the Sabbath. "The sab- 
bath was made for man, and not man for the 
sabbath." 2 : 23-3 : 6. No institution, even the 
best and most sacred, is an end in itself; it 
must serve. 

5. The opposing spirit : the most dominating and fatal 

of all perils is juggling with the truth ; it disrupts 
one's very being. 3 : 22-30. 

1 Cf. summary of propositions from Mark in Ecce Homo, Preface 
Supplementary, pp. v-vi. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK IO9 

6. The mark of kinship to Christ : doing the will of God. 

3:3i-35- 

7. The nature of the Kingdom in parables. 4: 1-34. 

1) Man's own choice a constant element. The para- 

bles of the sower and of the lamp. 4: 1-20, 
21-25. By attention, heeding, sharing; so, 
and only so, comes growth. Men will not 
drift into great things. 4 : 23-24. The con- 
trary perils are set forth in the parable of the 
sower. 

2) The opposition of evil is to be expected, and we 

are not to be discouraged thereby. The para- 
ble of the sower. 

3) We are to rely on the one great positive method 

of the growth of good. The parables of the 
fruit-bearing earth, and of the mustard seed. 
4 : 26-32. 

4) In the growth of the good, and in its final triumph, 

we may have faith. Parables of the fruit-bearing 
earth, and of the mustard seed. 

5) These same parables bear witness to the greatness 

of the aim of the Kingdom. 
II. The more intimate training of the Twelve. Chs. 7-10 : 

1. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." 7: 1-23; 

8: 11-21. 

1) Falseness and insincerity; unethical religiosity. 

7:1-13. Consequent sign seeking. 8:11-12. 
Corrupt all ; are utterly fatal. Cf. 3 : 23-30. 
From this time on, no possible line is to be 
drawn between the right and the religious life. 

2) The insistence upon inner righteousness. 7: 14-23. 

2. The heart of Jesus' message. 8 : 27-38. 

1) The self-sacrificing master, and a self-sacrificing 

disciple. 8 : 27-34. 

2) The sole omnipotence of love as the law of life 

and the way to glory ; Christ's fundamental 
paradox. 8:35-9:1. Cf. 9 : 30-50. 



110 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

(i) Illustrated in his own case. 8:31; 9:30- 
32; 10:32-34. 

(2) Illustrated in warning against false ambition. 

" If any man would be first." 9 : 33-37. 
Cf. 10 : 35-45. 

(3) No selfish exclusiveness in Christ's service. 

" Forbid him not." 9 : 38-41. 

(4) Willingness to pay the price for the highest 

achievement. " If thy hand cause thee to 
stumble, cut it off." 9 : 43-50. 
3. Jesus' applications of his principle to social questions. 
Ch. 10. 

1) Marriage and divorce. 10:2-12. The unselfish 

(v. 5), reverent spirit (vv. n-12), the great es- 
sential to marriage. No true marriage without. 
Not a merely private concern (v. 9). 

2) The significance of childhood. 10 : 13-16. Cf. 

9:36-37. 

(1) The priceless value of the child ; reverence 

for him. 10 : 14. Cf. 9 : 37. 

(2) The essential significance of the childlike 

qualities. 10:14-15. Cf. 9 : 35-37. 

3) Wealth. 10: 17-31. 

(1) The peril of the lesser goods. 10 : 21-25. 

(2) The larger goal. 10 : 28-31. 

4) Ambition. 10 : 35-45. " Whosoever would be- 

come great among you, shall be your minister." 
III. Jesus fires enti7ig his claims to spiritual lordship, Messiah- 
ship, at the center of power. 10 : 46 ff. 

1. The title accepted. 10 : 46-52. 

2. Asserted in symbolic action; the triumphal entry. 

11 : 1-10. 

3. Asserted in action of judgment. 11:11-25. Parabolic 

action : the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing 
of the temple. 

4. Asserted in denial of leaders' right to judge him in im- 

plied judgment on them. 11 : 27-33. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK III 

5. Asserted in parable of historic judgment. Wicked 

husbandmen. 12:1-12. 

6. Manifested in spiritual discernment and far-sighted 

vision as against ensnaring questions. 12 : 13-44. 

1) To end quibbles that keep off the true Kingdom of 

God. Appeal for God and good. "Render 
unto Caesar," etc. 12 : 13-17. 

2) To end mere partisan puzzles that gather about 

the future life ; to dignify and clear up the theme. 
12: 18-27. 

3) To bring out the eternal life of love, the simplicity 

and glory of life, above all varieties and ques- 
tions. " Thou shalt love." 12 : 28-34. 

7. Asserted in criticism of current conceptions. 12:35- 

44. 

1) In discernment of Messiahship as quite above 

Davidic kingship. 12 : 35-37. 

2) In warning against other religious teachers. 

12:38-40. 

3) In standard of benevolence. The widow's mite. 

12 : 41-44. 

8. Assertion of his perpetual lordship. History to be 

read in his light. The eschatological discourse. 
Ch. 13. 

The logical development and grouping of the Characteris- 
teaching material in Mark are to be noted. At- ^ s r ^ s 
tention may also be directed to the way in which treatment. 
the parables in the 4th chapter fit the situation 
created by the increasing opposition, and to the 
compact but comprehensive treatment which Mark 
gives to the teaching in the more intimate train- 
ing of the Twelve. 1 

1 Of this entire teaching in Mark we are to deal only with those 
passages that may be regarded as distinctly ethical, though it is not 



112 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The ethical 
passages in 
Mark here 
discussed. 



Of the ethical passages in Mark there may be 
omitted in the present discussion all those pas- 
sages which have been covered in the previous 
chapters, as well as all parallels to the Sermon on 
the Mount, which is to receive later, special con- 
sideration. The passages in the ethical teaching 
of Jesus, as given in Mark, which concern us 
here, may be thus indicated : — 

1. Mark I : 15, 17, 38. Jesus 1 message, method, motive, and 

goal. 

2. Mark 2 : 17, 19-22 (cf. 3 '.4), 2 : 25-28. Jesus' motive, and 

the revolutionary nature of his teaching. 

3. Mark 4 : 3-9, 11-20, 26-29. Parable of the sower and ex- 

planation. Parable of the fruit-bearing earth. 

4. Mark 7 : 6-15, 18-23. The tradition of the elders. 

5. Mark 8 : 35-36. The great paradox. 

6. Mark 9 : 37, 39-41, 49, 50 b. " Whosoever shall receive one 

of such little children," etc. " Forbid him not." "Every 
one salted with fire." " Have salt in yourselves." 

7. Mark 10:2-9, 14-15, 23-25, 27, 29-31, 38-40. As to 

divorce ; as to children ; as to wealth ; as to ambition. 

8. Mark 12: 15-17, 29-31, 34, 38-40, 43-44. "Render unto 

Caesar." The great commandment. "Beware of the 
scribes." The widow's mite. 

Among these sayings are particularly to be 
noted Jesus' great paradox, "Whosoever would 

easy to draw a sharp line between those in which some ethical 
principle is clearly involved, and those which are exclusively ethical. 
A list of the passages which this discussion regards as ethical may 
be added: 1 : 15, 17, 38; 2: 17, 19-22, 25-28; 3:4, 23-29, 33-35 ; 
4:3-9, 11-20, 21-25, 26-29, 3 -32; 6:4,8-11; 7:6-15,18-23; 
8: 12, 15, 17-21, 34-38; 9- 35-37* 39-5°; IO: 2 ~9, "-12, 14-15* 
18-19, 21, 23-25, 27, 29-31, 38-40, 42-45; 12: 15-17, 29-31, 34, 
38-40,43-44; i3:33~37- 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 113 

save his life shall lose it " (8 : 35-37), and the state- Notable 
ment of the summary of the whole law in love ]^2 s m 
(12:29-31); the social teachings in chapters 10 treatment. 
and 12; and the four short sayings peculiar to 
Mark : the priceless word, " The sabbath was 
made for man and not man for the sabbath " 
(2 : 27), the parable of the fruit-bearing earth 
(4:26-29), "For every one shall be salted with 
fire" (9:49), and "Have salt in yourselves, and 
be at peace one with another " (9 : 50 b). 

In our discussion we may well follow Mark's Mark's 
own initial notes, so getting the peculiar flavor of ethlcal notes - 
his reflection of the teaching of Jesus; and see, 
thus, in Mark's presentation: (1) Jesus' message, 
method, motive, goal, and the revolutionary con- 
trast in his teaching ; (2) the great paradox, the 
great commandment, and the demand for the child- 
like qualities ; and (3) the social applications of 
his teachings. 

The passages peculiar to Mark find their natural The passages 
place in even so brief a summary ; for it should ?! cu ! iar to 
not be forgotten that those which are commonly 
spoken of as peculiar to him are so very few, 
simply because both the other Synoptic Gospels 
appropriated so completely the teaching as Mark 
had set it forth. It would be quite unfair, there- 
fore, to Mark, to judge his conception of the teach- 
ing of Jesus chiefly by these few peculiar passages. 

It may be noted, also, that the same ethical 
notes which disclosed themselves even in Schmie- 
del's few passages, and still more fully in the 



H4 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The ethical 
notes of 
Schmiedel's 
passages 
here re- 
peated. 



Jesus' 
message. 



doubly attested sayings, and in Q, are of course 
once more here in evidence, and are further de- 
veloped : the sense of the seriousness of life 
evinced in the sayings in chapters 8 and 9 
(8:35-37; 9 : 49> 5 0D )> an d m the social applica- 
tions in chapters 10 and 12; the demand for ab- 
solute genuineness and integrity of life in chapter 
7 (7 : 14-23) ; the necessary inwardness of all true 
moral and spiritual life, also in chapter j{j : 14-15* 
18-19, 21-23); the principle of reverence for the 
person in the teaching concerning children and di- 
vorce ; the absolutely ethical conception of religion, 
in chapters 1 and 2 (1:38; 2:17); the sense of 
contrast with the religious life of his times in chap- 
ters 2, 3, 7, 8 ; his deep and characteristic compas- 
sion, and the requirement of a like spirit in others, 
in chapters 9 and 10. 

Turning now to the characteristic notes of Mark's 
presentation, we may take them up essentially in 
his own order. 

1. Jesus' message — "The time is fulfilled, and 
the kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and be- 
lieve in the gospel " (Mark 1:15), — on the strictly 
ethical side, may be regarded as expressing his 
faith in that moral trend of the universe which logi- 
cally underlies all moral struggle for character, 
and all social endeavor for the progress of the race. 
Men are to believe in this good news, and realize 
that individual and racial progress depend upon 
spiritual conditions, — upon the getting of a new 
mind, and upon this initial faith in the possibility 




THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 115 

of moral living, and in the further certainty, to use 
Nash's language, that "the universe is on the side 
of the will " in its fight for righteousness. 

Jesus' method of leavening the race by the men Jesus' 
of the right spirit is set forth in his call to his first method - 
disciples, — " Come ye after me and I will make 
you to become fishers of men." It is like the later 
saying, "The good seed, these are the sons of the 
kingdom." The law is the law of the contagion 
of life, and those associated with him are, in turn, 
by the touch of a life like his, to win others also. 
And the inducement is of the highest : they are to 
count among men and for the highest interests of 
men. The condition here suggested by Jesus is 
coming after him ; and, quite aside from any reli- 
gious interpretation of his life, and purely with 
reference to the accomplishment of the ethical ends 
of the race, it may still be said that no one so min- 
isters to men as the man who can make the spirit 
of Jesus a reality to men in his own life and speech. 
There is no way so sure for awakening men to new 
spiritual insights and new ethical aspirations, to 
great hopes and ideals, as to bring them into close 
touch with the mind of Jesus. 

The next saying in Mark (2:17; cf. 1:38) — The motive 
" They that are whole have no need of a physician, ^ e ^ pose 
but they that are sick : I came not to call the right- 
eous, but sinners " — indicates both the motive 
and the purpose that Jesus puts back of his own 
life, and implies should underlie every true life. 
The motive is love, and the purpose, to give one's 



n6 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The revo- 
lutionary 
character 
of the 
teaching of 
Jesus. 



The spirit 
of rejoicing 
sonship. 



life where it is most needed and will count for most. 
Mark makes the saying an answer to the complaint, 
" How is it that he eateth and drinketh with pub- 
licans and sinners ? " Jesus' answer, therefore, is, 
in substance, As surely as a good physician will 
seek to bring his skill to those who need it most, 
so surely must the man who seeks the moral health 
of men wish to invest his life where the need is 
greatest. As the method is the contagion of life, 
so surely must the motive be love, and the goal the 
loving life for the individual and for the race, the 
civilization of brotherly men. 

Mark next brings out, in his presentation of the 
teaching of Jesus, the revolutionary character of his 
teaching, and of his relation to the previous age, in 
Jesus' discussion of fasting and of the Sabbath 
(2 : 18-28 ; 3 : 1-4), in his parables of the undressed 
cloth and of the old wine-skins, and in the saying, 
" The sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the sabbath." The same clear sense of contrast 
with the prevalent religious spirit of his time is 
recognized, thus, in the beginning of this earliest 
gospel, as in Schmiedel's "foundation-pillars," in 
the doubly attested sayings, and in Q. 

The saying, " Can the sons of the bride chamber 
fast while the bridegroom is with them ? " (2 : 19), is 
characteristic of the constant inwardness of Jesus' 
thought, that it is, of course, to be assumed that 
fasting must correspond to the inner spirit, and 
it " cannot " therefore be for those who have the 
spirit of rejoicing sonship. Jesus will have nothing 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 117 

merely put on, no motions simply gone through. 
There is here, again, clear repudiation of asceticism, 
as such. This one point may be said to be typical, 
thus, of the whole relation of the epoch that Jesus 
would introduce to the older epoch. It is as though 
he would say : You cannot put this new spirit of 
rejoicing sonship, the new ethical spirit that recog- 
nizes a life from within, into the old forms ; they 
are not the natural expression of it. The new 
spirit necessarily breaks through these, if it is to 
be really honest and true to itself. 

And one may well believe that the parables of The new 
the undressed cloth and of the old wine-skins are 5. pirit , 

demands 

arguments that Jesus had first of all used with him- new forms, 
self, in determining the relation in which he was to 
stand to the old teaching. He must have repeat- 
edly asked himself, Can I keep and use the old 
forms ? Will they suffice for the new spirit ? 
Jesus must have had a conviction, growing through 
the years, that he could not simply patch up the 
old religious conceptions and method of thought, 
that he was not simply to add a " lean-to " to Juda- 
ism ; the unshrunk cloth would, in the end, make 
a worse tear in the old religion. And so in the 
parable of the new wine and the old wine-skins, 
Jesus is virtually saying to himself, There is such 
fermenting power in these new principles that they 
would inevitably break through these old forms, 
and the spirit itself, having no appropriate embodi- 
ment, perish. " And no man putteth new wine into 
old wine-skins ; else the wine will burst the skins, 



n8 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



A revolu- 
tionary 
principle. 



Jesus' 
thorough- 
going con- 
sistency. 




and the wine perisheth, and the skins : but they 
put new wine into fresh wine-skins " (Mark 2 : 22). 
He is saying, therefore, I have no recourse, I must 
seek new embodiment for the new spirit. 

In other words, Jesus believes that in his " good 
news of God" (1 : 14) as essentially Father, he has 
a faith and a principle that may be applied to 
every part of life, and that will prove everywhere 
revolutionary; and in these two brief parables of 
the unshrunk cloth and of the old wine-skins, he 
is justifying the fundamental demand always to be 
made for honest readjustment to the new thought 
and spirit, for carrying through with logical con- 
sistency the great new conviction. There may be 
an unwise conservatism — such as has been mani- 
fested again and again in the history of the church 
— that, striving to hold to the old forms, really 
loses the true spirit. 

Indeed, it is perhaps not too much to say that 
the greatest contribution of even the thinking of 
Jesus is not so much the mere conception of God 
as Father, and of every man as having the value 
and privilege of a child of God, but the absolutely 
thorough way, the complete logical consistency, 
with which he carries this principle out into every 
part of his life and thinking and teaching. The 
originality of the teaching of Jesus, that is, does 
not consist primarily in mere discernment of this or 
that or the other truth as one among ten thousand, 
but in his unerring judgment as to the proportions 
of truth, and his dominating sense of the supreme 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK II9 

place to be given to certain truths as compared 
with others. It is this, as we shall see, that brings 
such unity and simplicity into his thinking, and 
this that makes his teaching and living a harmoni- 
ous whole. 

Jesus' sense of the revolutionary nature of his ah institu- 
teaching is still more clearly seen in the attitude ^mT means 
which he takes toward the Sabbath, where it is not 
too much to say that he seeks a revolution at the 
climax and center of the institutional system of 
Judaism (2 : 23-3 : 6). In answer to the complaint 
of the Pharisees against the conduct of his dis- 
ciples in plucking the ears of wheat as they went 
through the grain fields on the Sabbath day, Jesus 
first, in an argnmentum ad hominem, appeals to 
their own Scriptures and to the conduct of their 
own best-loved king, as a recognition that mere 
ceremonial requirements, even of a pretty serious 
kind, are not to set aside the common needs of 
men ; and then he adds the fundamental principle, 
in one of the four sayings peculiar to Mark, — 
" The sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the sabbath" (2:27; cf. 3:4). That is, institu- 
tions, even the highest and most sacred of all, are 
intended for means, and are never to be exalted 
into ends in themselves. Bruce may well say, 
" For this saying alone, and the parable of gradual 
growth, his Gospel was worth preserving." For 
the principle so enunciated is plainly fundamental 
and far-reaching ; it means nothing less than that 
persons alone are truly valuable and sacred in 



120 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

themselves, that the sacredness of all places, and 
of all institutions, even of the church and of the 
sacraments and of the Sabbath, is wholly bor- 
rowed. 1 
A crisis Mark clearly and truly sees — what Jesus must 

recognized. have p i a i n iy realized — that this attitude on the 
part of Jesus meant an inevitable and fatal crisis 
with the Pharisees: "And the Pharisees," Mark 
says, "went out, and straightway with the Hero- 
dians took counsel against him, how they might 
destroy him " (Mark 3 : 6). 2 In this position, that 
is, concerning the Sabbath, it seemed to the Phari- 
sees, not unreasonably, that Jesus was challenging 
the whole Judaistic system, considered as an end 
in itself, in its highest and most important institu- 
tion. It is probably on account of this growing 
intensity of opposition, that there comes at this 
point in Jesus' ministry a real change in the form 
of his teaching to the use of parables. 3 Jesus could 
not have failed to understand what such a chal- 
lenge of the conventional teaching as to the 
Sabbath meant, and his challenge thus evinces 
unmistakably his sense of the impossibility of com- 
promise, of the truly revolutionary contrast there 

1 Cf. Lotze, Practical Philosophy, p. 125 : "Every institution — 
no matter how magnificent a mystical significance it might have — ■ 
would still be of indifferent value if it were of no use in life." 

2 Cf. Bennett, The Life of Jesus According to St. Mark, pp. 38, 
47 ff., 54 ff.; E. A. Abbott, Philochristus, pp. 168 ff.; Burkitt, The 
Gospel History and Its Transmission, pp. 81 ff. 

3 Cf. Matt. 13:10; Mark 4:9-11, 22-24, 33-34- See above, 
p. 5 8. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 121 

was between the inner spirit of loving service of 
men which he sought, and any possible idea of a 
ruling of men by external institutions and com- 
mands thought to be in themselves sacred. 

It is perhaps the greatest glory of our own gen- The service 
eration that it is applying more rigorously to all of men ' 
institutions of every kind, social, economic, politi- 
cal, educational, religious, this supreme test of the 
service of men. It will not do longer to evoke age, 
or precedent, or convention, or respectability, or 
the difficulties of change ; every institution alike 
must justify itself on the ground of service 
rendered. In so far as this is characteristic of our 
time, we are simply applying this principle of the 
ethical teaching of Jesus, that no institution, even 
the best and most sacred, is an end in itself; it 
must serve. 

This sense of the contrast between his teaching Discussion 
and that at least all too prevalent in his time, ° f *jS 
comes out perhaps even more pointedly in the dis- of the 
cussion of the tradition of the elders, in the 7th elders * 
chapter (7 : 1-23). A determined effort has been 
made to break down the historicity of this passage, 
an effort which I judge must be regarded as, in the 
main, unsuccessful. So far as it is justifiable, it 
suggests at the most only that we do not make 
Christ's language at all points apply indiscrimi- 
nately to all Pharisees. 1 It is too largely left out 

1 Cf. Burkitt, The Gospel History and Its Transmission, pp. 
169-174, especially 173-174; Moffatt, "Survey of Recent Litera- 
ture on the Pharisees and Sadducees," Review of Theology and 
Philosophy, September, 1908. 



122 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



of account in some present-day discussions of Phar- 
isaism from the Jewish side, that it is not at all 
intentional hypocrisy that Jesus mainly has in 
mind, but that traditionalism and externalism, that 
putting of the " hedge of the law " above the main 
principles of the moral life, to which the history 
of Pharisaism shows indisputably that it so easily 
lent itself, and which is certain to end in virtual 
hypocrisy. And in this passage, the two great 
significant things are his protest against the place 
given to tradition as over against the plain demands 
of common obligation, — " Ye leave the command- 
ment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men " 
(7: 8), and his virtual attack on the whole principle 
of ceremonial defilement (vv. 14-23). For Mark's 
comment at the close of verse 19 — "This he said, 
making all meats clean " — must be regarded as 
the practically inevitable inference from the whole 
teaching of the passage : " Hear me all of you, 
and understand : there is nothing from without 
the man, that going into him can defile him ; but 
the things which proceed out of the man are those 
that defile the man " (vv. 14-15). 
Religious In both parts of the passage, that is, the insist- 

wrZThu- ence u P on tne inwardness of the moral and spirit- 
man duty. ual life once more comes out as contrasted with 
every possible external and traditional requirement. 
It is, of course, clearly to be recognized in the his- 
tory of Pharisaism, that both the traditions of 
the elders and the ceremonial requirements were 
originally intended to guard the life of the Phari- 






THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 123 

see the more perfectly. But just because they 
were thus honestly taken on from the religious 
motive, they were a constant danger. With Jesus' 
clear insight that there is no true life at all ex- 
cept it be from within, he can only attack with 
vehemence these traditions and ceremonial laws, 
that seemed to him all the worse and the more 
beguiling and imperiling because they are in- 
troduced under the guise of religion. 1 They are 
in great danger of becoming pious reasons for 
unvarnished sin, for setting aside the clearest 
human duties on the plea of religion (vv. 10-13), 
for setting aside the will of God on the plea of 
serving God, for setting aside unmistakable obli- 
gations arising out of the plainest providential re- 
lations of life, to undertake special religious duties. 
Whether or not the specific illustration of this 
charge in verses 10 to 13 is to be finally historically 
justified, the danger which Jesus here points out 
was an undoubted one, not only for his generation, 
but for every generation. Jesus wishes to make it 
clear that he will have nothing of this conflict of 
human obligation and of divine will. And it is to 
be feared that to-day Jesus would find much con- 
venient and conventional Christianity in clear con- 
flict with his teaching ; that in many present-day 
apologies for war, for enormous navies, and for 
various industrial and business methods, he could 
see only a plain setting aside of the clearest moral 

1 No one has brought out this danger of externalism more 
strongly than Herrmann in many passages in his Faith and Morals. 



124 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

principles. It is a part of the insistent ethical 
spirit of Jesus that he will have nothing of elevat- 
ing supposed pious observances above simple hu- 
man duties. 
The danger It is not, then, external ceremonial defilement, 
tionai am? 1 " not disobedience to religious traditions, but inner 
ceremonial, impurity, which is to be avoided (vv. 18-23). Here 
once more the true contribution of Jesus will not 
be measured aright, unless one sees the unerring 
logical consistency with which he carries through 
his principle of the inwardness of the moral life. 
The Pharisees thought, and many others think to- 
day, that various traditions and rules are of impor- 
tance, and they virtually ask the question of the 
Pharisees and scribes, " Why walk not thy disci- 
ples according to the tradition of the elders, but 
they pray with defiled hands?" And they wonder 
that men of inner spiritual insight should take 
offence that the importance of these outward 
observances should be pressed. But to Jesus' 
mind it is plainly not an insignificant matter, when 
petty things are elevated to a place of steady im- 
portance beside the greatest duties. What really 
so results is not that you have succeeded in giving 
profound ethical significance to ecclesiasticisms 
and ceremonialisms, but that you have brought 
down the supreme glory of the ethical and funda- 
mental religious demands to the level of indifferent 
external observances. There is here, therefore, 
for Jesus the revolutionary laying aside of ceremo- 
nial as essential to religion, the repudiation of what 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 125 

has been well called the heresy of heresies, — the 
separation of the sacred and the secular. So Jesus 
says, " For from within, out of the heart of men, 
evil thoughts proceed " (v. 2 1 ). The real defilement 
is from within ; here is the great fight. We can 
ill spare time and strength on indifferent issues. 

It is this same sense of contrast with the Phari- The sign- 
saic spirit that once more expresses itself in Mark spirit! 18 
in the passage concerning the " seeking a sign 
from heaven," and the warning to " beware of the 
leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod'' 
(8: 11-13, 15). Jesus "sighed deeply in his spirit," 
Mark says, that the Pharisees should seek a sign 
from heaven, while they had no discernment of the 
significance of his love for men and his loving work 
among men, because they were blind to the moral 
evidence. The spirit that tends to emphasize the 
external and traditional, can hardly fail in the end 
to give to it, first, undue importance, and then to 
make it seem to be the essence of the religious 
and righteous life, and so to lead to a self- 
deceiving, unethical, and sign-seeking spirit. If 
this spirit begins to prevail in the little group of 
chosen men who are to be the seed for the new 
kingdom, the salt to keep the earth sound, the 
leaven to leaven its lump, all is lost. Jesus 
believes that the inevitable trend of this spirit, just 
because it tends to set aside the man's own instinc- 
tive moral judgments, is toward a kind of double- 
ness of the inner life, toward falseness and in- 
sincerity. 



126 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Renewed 
emphasis 
on the in- 
wardness 
of life. 



The great 
paradox 
and the 
great com- 
mandment. 



What Jesus means by " the leaven of Herod," 
in verse 15, is not made clear in this passage, but 
it probably is the simply worldly policy, the spirit 
of which is brought out in other passages in the 
teaching of Jesus. 

In line with this persistent emphasis of Jesus on 
the inwardness of the true life, are two other pas- 
sages in the 12th chapter of Mark (vv. 40, 43-44) : 
" They that devour widow's houses, and for a pre- 
tense make long prayers," and the comment on the 
two mites of the poor widow. The first passage 
is Jesus' indignant protest against a spirit, which 
it is to be feared is still not unknown. Beware, 
he says in substance, of religious leaders who affect 
the outward titles and trappings of their office, and 
offset their lack of humanity by a show of piety. 
And Gould expresses certainly the inner essence 
of Jesus' comment on the widow's two mites, when 
he speaks of it as setting forth " the contrast be- 
tween the outward meagerness and inner richness 
of the widow's service, and the outward ostentation 
and inward barrenness of the Pharisee's religion." 
" It is only as the gift measures the moral value 
of the giver that it counts with him who looks at 
the heart." 1 

2. From this survey of Jesus' message, method, 
motive, goal, and the revolutionary contrast of his 
teaching with that of his times, we may fitly turn 
to his statement of the great paradox of life, and 

1 The International Critical Commentary, St. Mark, pp. 238, 
239. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 127 

of the great commandment, and to two closely re- 
lated sayings, peculiar to Mark, — " For every one 
shall be salted with fire " (9 : 49), and " Have salt 
in yourselves, and be at peace one with another " 
(9:50 b). 

In the statement of the fundamental paradox of The great 
life — " For whosoever would save his life shall lose P aradox - 
it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake 
and the gospel's shall save it. For what doth it 
profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit 
his life?" (8: 35-36) — some believe that Jesus is 
quoting a proverb. 1 The parallels suggested make 
this seem to me rather doubtful ; but even if so, it 
is plain that its meaning for Jesus is greatly deep- 
ened. It is no mere "military proverb," but a 
statement of a fundamental law of life for Jesus 
himself, and for his disciples, a call to steady self- 
giving as the basic law of life. Against the whole 
selfish spirit of men and of his time, he affirms this 
universal law of self-giving love as the one law of 
life. In view of such a challenge, it is hardly 
strange that a great Chinese statesman should have 
found his strongest impression of Christ the impres- 
sion of his courage. 2 Jesus moves forward, in calm of 
spirit, to the issue of certain external defeat and death, 
in faith in the sole omnipotence of self-sacrificing love 
as the law of life and the way to glory. He believes, 
and he acts upon the belief, that life is achieved in the 
proportion in which a man gives himself in service, 

1 Cf. D. Smith, art. " Proverbs," D. C. G. 

2 Hibbert Journal, October, 1908, p. 22. 



128 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



in the proportion in which he has come into a gen 
uine love ; just as Browning has made the aged 
John say : — 

" For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, 
And hope and fear . . . 
Is just our chance o 1 the prize of learning love." 

Jesus has discovered for himself, and holds un- 
flinchingly for others, that a genuinely unselfish love 
is the most rewarding of all things, that the para- 
doxical secret of life, therefore, is to find one's 
life by losing it, — fulfillment of life by the surren- 
der of the selfish self, just because in every per- 
sonal relation there is no enlarging life without 
such continuous self-giving. What is the world 
worth without such worthful personal relations, 
that is, without such self -giving love ? " What doth 
it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit 
his life?" (v. 36). This paradox of Jesus is the 
one saying which occurs in each of the four gospels, 
and is twice repeated in two of them. It would 
seem plainly to belong among the most surely at- 
tested sayings, and to express what must have been 
a fundamental and constantly recurring teaching 
of Jesus. 
Sharing the From Jesus' religious point of view, it is exactly 
such self-giving love that he believes is the very 
life of God himself as Father. And it is for him, 
therefore, self-evident that to lose this, whatever one 
gains in things, is to fail to share in the life of God 
himself, and so to lose all that is best worth while 
in life. 



en- 



life of God. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 1 29 

The 38th verse, with its eschato logical reference The dwin- 
— " For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of dling Hfe * 
my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, 
the Son of man shall be ashamed of him, when he 
cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy 
angels " — like the parallel passage already con- 
sidered in Q (Matt. 10 : 32-33), is, after all, only a 
religious putting of an ethical conviction. It is as 
though Jesus had said, Whosoever shall be ashamed 
of my spirit and the fundamental principle of my 
life, will have and be nothing in which I can glory 
at the end. This seems to Jesus to be a mere 
matter of inevitable cause and effect ; there is 
nothing arbitrary; there could be no other pos- 
sible issue. It is no threat which he here voices, 
but a solemn, sobering, inevitable law. The 
man who refuses the law of this paradox of life 
has taken the way of the steadily dwindling life, 
and there is nothing more to be said. There is 
never any blind sentimentalism in the teaching of 
Jesus. 

It is worth noting that it is this very principle The modem 
of self-sacrifice, as set over against the counsels of T^ s , of 
self-regarding prudence, which on the one hand principle 
has made the Christian teaching seem so impracti- s^^e 
cable, and yet on the other hand, as civilization 
advances, is seen to be absolutely indispensable, 
not only to the progress of that civilization as a 
whole, but to the larger life of the individual him- 
self. Much has been made, even on the part of 
those counting themselves disciples of Jesus, of the 



130 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

impracticableness of his teaching ; and yet one can 
hardly help saying with Schmidt, that before the 
teaching of Jesus " is pronounced impracticable, an 
application of its fundamental principles should be 
tried on a larger scale than has hitherto been the 
case." 1 What gives the pungency and sting to 
many of Tolstoy's words, is his quite justified con- 
viction that there has not been a thoroughgoing 
attempt practically to apply the principles of the 
teaching of Jesus, and the vision that he has caught 
(even though his interpretation be often so literal- 
istic as to deny the spirit of Jesus' teaching) of the 
glorious possibilities for the race of a determined 
attempt to carry through to the utmost the princi- 
ples of Jesus' teaching. And we are coming daily 
more clearly to see, that a civilization necessarily 
so unified and interdependent as ours, even compels 
a cooperation that mu c be vastly extended and more 
and more complex ; and that that cooperation can- 
not reach its full possibilities without the intelligent 
and gladly voluntary participation on the part of 
each individual. Nor can the individual himself, 
therefore, share in the largest social life without 
this same self-surrender to the interests of the 
whole. As civilization reaches its goal, there- 
fore, we may be sure that the distinctive Chris- 
tian virtues, instead of seeming impracticable 
either for the individual or for society, must 
seem to be rather the fundamental and essential 

1 The Prophet of Nazareth, p. 309. Similarly, Lessing and Tol- 
stoy. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 131 

virtues, without which the highest civilization is 
impossible. 1 

With this paradox of the self-sacrificing life, may other calls 
be coupled the short saying already quoted, " For *° r ^^ 
every one shall be salted with fire," as probably spirit. 
pointing to the same sacrificial spirit. And the 
other brief saying, " Have salt in yourselves, and 
be at peace one with another," in Mark's connection, 
seems to be an exhortation to that absolute integ- 
rity and soundness of life to which a previous 
phrase — "If the salt have lost its saltness, where- 
with will ye season it ? " — points. And as the one 
genuine life seems to Jesus to be that of a life of 
love, it is not unnatural that to the exhortation, 
" Have salt in yourselves," should be added, "And 
be at peace one with another." 

With the great paradox is to be joined, clearly, The great 
as simply its logical outcome, or perhaps rather command- 
presupposition, the statemeiit'of thegreat command- 
ment (Mark 12:29-31): "The first is, Hear, O 
Israel ; The Lord our God, the Lord is one : and 
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and 
with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none 
other commandment greater than these." There 

a Cf. Miss Scudder, "The Social Conscience of the Future," 
Hibbert Journal, January, 1909; Fremantle, The World as the Sub- 
ject of Redemption, pp. I, 15, 28 ff.; Maurice, Social Morality, 
pp. 392, 408; Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, 
pp. 196 ff. 



132 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

is here expressed Jesus' clear positive statement of 
love as the all-inclusive virtue, the very essence 
and sum of life, whether religious or ethical. And 
the principle is clearly connected in the closest 
and most indissoluble way with Jesus' religious 
conviction of God as Father. Such a conception 
of God must have as its first inference just such 
a summing up of the whole ethical life. For, if 
the highest possible conception of life for the reli- 
gious man would be the sharing of the life of God, 
and if the very life of God is the unselfish self-giv- 
ing life of the Father, then, obviously, one can come 
into the sharing of the life of God only through 
taking on the unselfish life of love, and in taking 
this on, he thereby takes on every helpful ministry 
that the insight of love itself can suggest. Out- 
side of such suggestion lies no moral law. This 
very thought of the ideal of the personal life as one 
of love, it is to be noted, makes it impossible to 
draw any sharp line between the personal and so- 
cial ethics of Jesus. In his thought, it is impos- 
sible for one to be what he ought in his own life 
without evincing love in all the varied relations and 
spheres of life. 1 
Life made Once more, Jesus' contribution here is not the 

one and simple assertion of this truth of the summing up 

glorious. A ox 

of all duty in love, but the way in which he brings 
it into an absolutely unique prominence, and sees 
that it applies everywhere in life and makes life 
one and glorious, and the way in which, by what he 

1 Cf. Haering, The Ethics of the Christian Life, pp. 315-318. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 1 33 

is, he enables us to believe it. 1 The conception, as 
has been said, is an immediate inference from his 
principle of the fatherhood of God, direct, profound, 
and profoundly simple. It has been hard for men 
to understand how profound this summary of the 
law is. It has taken the laboratory practice of 
generations, as we have just seen, for us to dis- 
cover its full reach. This generation seems to us 
to be the first to come, even gradually, into its full 
meaning. The principle of love as the fulfilling of 
the law brings out the glory and the simplicity of 
life at the same time. It raises life above all vari- 
ations of lesser doctrines even about Jesus himself, 
above all party shibboleths, above all one-sided em- 
phases of any one age, modern or ancient. The 
persistent life of love — that itself holds the key 
to all the special problems. 2 

3. And it is really this single principle of the Social ap- 
loving life of which Jesus is making various social p lcatlons - 
applications? as we have already seen in the gen- 

1 Cf. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 127. 

2 Cf. Harnack, What is Christianity?,^. 8, 17, 121; Peabody, 
op. «'/.,pp. 104 ff . : Jesus' emphasis on both the personal and the 
social, pp. 102, 119, 125, 132-133, 256, 352. 

3 Cf. Votaw, art. " Sermon on the Mount," H. D. B., extra 
volume, p. 30 : " Social ethics and individual ethics cannot rest upon 
different principles^ This is doubtless one reason why Jesus gives 
at most only illustrative applications of his principles to social ques- 
tions. This reticence, too, is more in harmony with his method, 
which is that of gradual growth rather than of revolution (cf. 
Ramsay, The Education of Christ, pp. 72-76), and with his prin- 
ciple of reverence for the person. He wishes to have the applica- 
tions grow up naturally, and to bring men to insights of their own 



134 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

eral outline of the teaching in Mark, in chapters 
9, 10, and 12. For here this principle of a self- 
giving love is applied to ambition, to the treatment 
of children, to marriage, to wealth, and to duties to 
the state. 
The am- And, first, as to ambition y if the only true life 

bitionfor ig th life of loving service, then plainly the 

surpassing ° ' r j 

service. ambition that seeks to take selfish advantage of 

another is quite misdirected (9 : 33-37 ; 10 .'35-45). 
As the teaching of Jesus, already considered, 
has brought out, to Jesus' mind it is absolutely 
clear that, "if any man would be first, he shall 
be last of all, and servant of all" (9:35). If 
the very aim of life is to learn to love, then 
he whose fundamental principle is selfishness, 
thereby shuts himself out from life. Truly, if 
Jesus' principle of love as life is true, such am- 
bitious self-seekers " know not what they ask " 
(10:38). To "sit on his right hand," to share in 
his "glory," means only to drink the more deeply 
of the cup of his sacrificial spirit, and to be baptized 
with his baptism of service. The ambition, thus, 
that Jesus suggests, is the ambition for surpassing 
service ; the only priority that, upon his principle, 
can seem worth while, is priority in such unselfish 
service. 



rather than to the following of rules. (Cf. Gardner, Exploratio 
Evangelica, p. 202; Ross, The Teaching of Jesus, pp. 101, 104, 
119 ff.; Harris, Moral Evolution, pp. 220 ff.; Harnack, What is 
Christianity ?, pp. 99-100; Brooks, The Influence of Jesus, pp. 
73-138, especially 84, 88, 98, 105.) 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 1 35 

It means much that this generation is bringing New pro- 
men in all professions increasingly to this stand- standards 
ard, and more and more making it certain that no 
one of any profession may keep self-respect, not 
only if he does not render service commensurate 
to the reward given, but also if he fails to give the 
service demanded by the social trust involved in 
his profession, even when there is no external 
reward, and when life itself may be in danger. 

And it is this same sense of self -giving love that Reverence 
guides Jesus in what he has to say concerning the ^nVthe 
^7^(9:36-37; 10:13-16). One sees in Jesus' childlike 
sense of the priceless value of the child and his ( i uaities - 
reverence for him as a person (9:37; 10:14), and 
in his conviction of the essential significance of 
the childlike qualities (10: 14, 15), once again, an 
immediate and inevitable inference from his key- 
thought of God as Father, or of a reverent love as 
the very essence of life. For if God is Father, and 
we his children, then our main business will be to 
show the true spirit of children, the childlike quali- 
ties. And toward every child, as a child of God, 
we shall have that reverence that betokens a true 
sense of the sacredness and value of his personal- 
ity, and we shall prize his fundamental qualities of 
trust and teachableness. For if there is love at 
the heart of the world, if there is a real moral 
trend in the universe, then all our ethical life roots 
in initial faith in that love, in the certainty of that 
moral trend. When, then, Jesus says : " Suffer 
the little children to come unto me; forbid them 



136 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The 

emancipa- 
tion of the 
child. 



Tolerance. 



not: for to such belongeth the kingdom of God. 
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God 
as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein " 
(10: 14-15 ), 1 — he is not only insisting upon the 
value of the child himself, but he is insisting at 
the same time, in religious phrase, upon the fun- 
damental nature of the qualities of trust and open- 
mindedness for all moral and spiritual development, 
just as the scientist insists upon a like trust in the 
rationality of the world, and a like absolute open- 
mindedness toward the facts, for progress in the 
scientific world. 

These passages and the other — "Whosoever 
shall receive one of such little children in my name 
receiveth me; and whosoever receiveth me re- 
ceiveth not me but him that sent me" — are 
nothing less than an emancipation of the child, and 
they make an epoch in the history of humanity. 
For it is here once for all declared that the child 
is not property, nor slave, but a sacred personality, 
to be reverenced and treated as such. This rever- 
ent ministry to the child, Jesus says, he accepts as 
ministry to himself and as ministry to God. 

So, too, the spirit of ministering love may not 
maintain selfish exclusiveness in that ministry. And 
here falls Mark's notable incident of the one whom 
the disciples found casting out demons in the 
name of Jesus, and whom they forbade, " because 
he followed not" with them (9:38-41). Jesus' 
answer is : " Forbid him not : for there is no man 

1 Cf. S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, pp. 275 ff. 



love in 
marriage. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 1 37 

who shall do a mighty work in my name, and be 
able quickly to speak evil of me. For he that is 
not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give 
you a cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ's, 
verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his 
reward." That is to say, the spirit of loving ser- 
vice must fruit in appreciation of such service in 
any other, and in the broad tolerance which issues 
from such appreciation. The spirit of love, as we 
saw, rises high above all party shibboleths and all 
divisions; for in the service of love there is no 
room for selfish exclusiveness. 

And love changes not only the self-seeking am- Reverent 
bition into ambition for surpassing service, and con- 
tempt for children into reverence for childhood and 
the childlike qualities, and the spirit of selfish exclu- 
siveness into the broad tolerance that looks to the 
spirit of the man and not to his party affiliations ; 
but, as we have already seen in the doubly attested 
sayings, it applies equally to the problem of mar- 
riage. The sayings that are added in Mark to the 
doubly attested saying on this topic, only make the 
more clear that Jesus' great contention is that true 
marriage allows no tyrannical spirit in either hus- 
band or wife (Mark 10:5), but demands a reverent 
love (v. 7), that seeks a relation that shall be com- 
plete and permanent (vv. 8-9) .* 

And, once more, it is but an application of the 

1 Ctr. the remarkable imputing to Jesus teaching which he here 
distinctly repudiates, in the article " Jesus or Christ," in the Hib- 
bert Journal, January, 1909. 



I38 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

The peril of same spirit of ministering love which Jesus ap- 
plies to the problem of wealth * in the incident of 
the rich young man and his comment upon it 
(Mark 10: 17-31). Just as in all these other cases 
Jesus has not been cutting down life and hemming 
it in, but, in accordance with his fundamental prin- 
ciple of love as life, has pointed the way to larger 
life, so here, too, it is the peril of the lower attain- 
ment which Jesus feels, the danger that there is 
for the man that he will be possessed by things 
instead of possessing them. He knows how heavy 
a price is often paid for wealth, how treacherously 
distracting and absorbing wealth may be, eating 
the heart out of life ; he knows how appetite for 
acquisition may become a disease, an insanity 
without compensating reward; he knows how it 
tends to blind the eyes and to paralyze the powers 
for the best things ; he knows men come to trust in 
riches to the exclusion of all else, and so to let go 
of any worthy goal in life. He knows how more 
than likely it is that wealth will mean the sacri- 
fice of children, that where the need is for the 
severest training and self-discipline as for a king's 
task, there will really be easy self-indulgence, with- 
out goal, and without self-control. Jesus has 

1 See the later discussions of Luke's parables of the rich fool, of 
the unrighteous steward, and of Dives and Lazarus, pp. 174, 183, 
187. Cf. Mathews, The Social Teaching of Jesus, ch. VI; Pea- 
body, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, chs. IV, V, VI; Peile, 
The Reproach of the Gospel, pp. 108 ff.; Murray, Handbook of Chris- 
tian Ethics, pp. 278 ff. ; Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social 
Crisis, pp. 74 ff. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 1 39 

really set before himself the problem our own 
time feels, the perilous problem of conquering 
wealth, more perilous than the problem of conquer- 
ing poverty. He knows how imperatively wealth 
demands unusual self-control, disciplined powers, 
and the domination of these material interests by 
larger and more ideal interests. For, in his thought, 
wealth is both a trust and a peril. 1 He does not 
doubt that wealth is a good, but it is a good only 
in its lower relative place, and as mastered by 
greater ends than itself, — made a servant of self- 
forgetful love. And he knows quite as surely the 
peril which is involved in its possession. The un- 
varnished chronicle of events in our own land in 
the last ten years would seem to be an all-sufficient 
commentary on these sayings of Jesus : " How 
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of God. How hard is it for them that 
trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God " 
(10:23-24). 

The spirit called for here, it is to be once more The loving 
noticed, is not asceticism; 2 but there is a clear h . fe , the r , 

' ' richer life. 

recognition of the peril of the lower attainment, of 
letting the lesser possessions jeopardize the greater, 
of sacrificing life to " the abundance of the things " 
a man possesseth. 3 That Jesus does not believe, 
and cannot believe, on his principle of a self -giving 
love as life, that he is thereby calling the men of 

1 Cf. Peabody, op. cit., p. 212. 

2 See above, pp. 66, 101. 

3 Cf. Peile, The Reproach of the Gospel, pp. Il4f¥. 



140 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Modern 
progress 
toward this 
principle 
of Jesus. 



the true life to something less, is clearly seen in 
his answer to Peter, — " There is no man that has 
left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or 
father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for 
the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundred- 
fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and 
sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with 
persecutions ; and in the world to come eternal 
life" (10:29-30). Jesus has no doubt, and if his 
principle is true he can have no doubt, that the 
man of the loving life is to get, that is, vastly more 
out of life than the selfish man possibly can. His 
phrase, "with persecutions," clearly recognizes 
that he does not mean, nor believe, that the loving 
life will be without its difficulties and hardships 
and trials, but that nevertheless now and here, as 
well as in the life to come which he posits, the 
life will be far more significant and far more re- 
warding. The life of loving service need have no 
envy of the mean and selfish and self-centered life 
dominated by material possessions. That is to say, 
Jesus believes that a world that is fundamentally 
moral is made on such a principle that selfishness 
is an inevitable limitation of life, and love just as 
inevitably an enlargement. 

And here, too, our generation has made, on the 
part at least of the far-seeing, rapid progress 
toward some sharing of this vision of Jesus. We 
are fast coming to the time when unearned, spe- 
cial privileges shall be no longer counted a badge 
of honor, but rather a mark of shame ; when 






THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK I4I 

the possession of wealth for which a man has 
rendered no adequate service to society shall be 
accounted not honorable but disgraceful; when 
it shall be clear to all men that the larger the pos- 
session of power of any kind, the greater is the 
service which in all honor must be rendered to 
society. That is to say, here, too, we are fast com- 
ing to see that the teaching of Jesus is not only 
not impracticable, but is the only teaching upon 
which any civilization, that our reason and con- 
science can recognize as justifiable, can be built. 

There is one other, almost incidental, application Duty to 
of his fundamental principle which Mark records, st ^ e I J ot set 

r c 7 aside by 

in Jesus' answer to the question as to tribute to religious 
Caesar, — " Render unto Caesar the things that are scrup es ' 
Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's " 
(12 : 17). Jesus solves the puzzle of policy, or of 
seeming conflict of duties to the theocracy on the 
one hand, and to the Roman government on the 
other, by simple, straightforward, honest discrimi- 
nation. The coin itself showed a government 
responsible for law and the machinery of civiliza- 
tion, rendering a real and accepted service; and 
hence having a right, at least so far, to support, as 
recognized in their own act in using the coin. 
There is, therefore, here a just obligation to be 
met as a part of duty, not to be refused on the 
ground of religious scruples ; there was no real 
opposition. It does not seem to me to be pressing 
this saying too far to say that it gives just recog- 
nition to the relative independence of the state, 



142 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

and sees that religion is not an exclusive interest, 
and is never to be made an excuse for avoiding the 
just claims of society. Farther than that it is not 
to be pressed. 1 As contrasted with some comments 
upon the passage, it seems to me rather that it is 
to be said, that there is at least no hint here that 
the state is of no account. There is no suggestion 
of mere " ethics of the end." Jesus speaks here 
with true moral insight, without a trace of fanati- 
cism, not evading the question, but putting his 
answer on impregnable ground, on the justness of 
the claims both of the Roman government and 
of God. Or, as Gould puts the matter, " Jesus' 
answer is practically, Do not try to make one duty 
exclude another, but fulfill one so as to consist 
with all the rest." 
Mark's The parables which Mark uses, though so few, 

parab es. are aV j f unc j arnen ^ a i to the whole method and faith 
and aim of Jesus, — the parables of the sower, 
of the light, of the fruit-bearing earth, and of the 
mustard seed. The parables of the light and of 
the mustard seed have already been dealt with. 
In the parable of the sower, Jesus indicates his 
clear discernment that results in moral and spir- 
itual work depend not alone on the seed but also 
on the soil, not alone on the truth but also on the 
choice of the hearer; and he suggests the ways in 
which the truth may be hindered in the hearts of 
men. And so he brings home once more his 

1 Cf. Mathews, The Social Teaching of 'Jesus, p. 118; Rauschen- 
busch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 88. 



THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN MARK 1 43 

sense of the seriousness of life. In the parable of 
the fruit-bearing earth, Jesus shows his faith in the 
growth of the good, and hence of the adaptation 
of the truth to the human soul, and he builds 
directly upon this assurance, while he recognizes 
at the same time that the truth must come to frui- 
tion gradually. This faith in the working of God 
or of the truth in men, is one more evidence of 
Jesus' great underlying faith in the moral trend » 
of the universe, expressed ethically, or in the 
fatherhood of God, expressed in religious terms. 
All these, we may be sure, were vital insights for 
Jesus himself in the prosecution of his own work 
in face of increasing opposition and certain final 
external defeat. He needed to steady his soul 
with these truths of his fundamental faith ; and he 
simply shares them with others in these parables. 

When one reviews the ethical teaching in Mark, Summary 
he finds that Jesus' message involved the ethical °l^ e , 
faith in the moral trend of the universe ; that his teaching in 
method is the contagion of the good life ; that his Mark - 
motive is love and the sense of the need of men ; 
that his goal is the establishment of the kingdom 
of love; that Jesus sees his teaching as plainly 
contrasted with that prevalent in his time with its 
trend toward externalism, traditionalism, and cere- 
monialism ; and that he has such a sense of the 
necessity of a mental and spiritual inwardness and 
independence, as makes him certain that none of the 
old forms are adequate to his new spirit; that 
Jesus discerns the basic nature of the childlike 



144 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

qualities, and states his one all-embracing principle 
of love in the great paradox and the great com- 
mandment ; and applies this principle —that one is 
to do always and only what love enjoins — sugges- 
tively to the social problems of ambition, wealth, 
the child, marriage, and the state. 
Conclusion. The summaries of the ethical teaching in Q and 
in Mark, thus show that into that teaching, in 
both these oldest sources, the ethical teaching of 
the earlier criteria clearly fits. In these longer 
sources the same ethical notes and emphases are 
to be found only further confirmed and amplified. 
The different presentations are thoroughly har- 
monious. 



CHAPTER IV 

ESTIMATES OF THE ETHICAL TEACHING IN THE 
SAYINGS OF JESUS PECULIAR TO EITHER 
MATTHEW OR LUKE 

I. The ethical teaching peculiar to Matthew. 

Building directly upon Allen's analysis of Mat- Passages 
thew, in the International Critical Commentary, and J^ re ^ be^ 
omitting, from his list of matter found only in considered. 
Matthew, all narrative passages, all passages in- 
dicated as editorial, all the non-ethical, all passages 
from the Sermon on the Mount and all parallels to 
it, and omitting also passages already covered, 
there remain to be treated here the following list 
of passages : — 

1. Matt. 10:16 b, 41. "Wise as serpents." "He that re- 

ceiveth a prophet." 

2. Matt. 12:7, 1 1-1 2 a, 36-37. " I desire mercy," etc. Sheep 

fallen into a pit on the Sabbath. " Idle word." 

3. Matt. 13 : 51-52. Every scribe like a householder. 

4. Matt. 15 : 13. " Every plant my Father planted not." 

5. Matt. 18:3-4, 10, 14, 23-35. "Except become as little 

children." " Despise not one of these little ones." 
"Not the will of Father one should perish." Parable of 
unforgiving servant. 

6. Matt. 19:12. Eunuchs for the kingdom. 

7. Matt. 20: 1-15. Parable of laborers in the vineyard. 

8. Matt. 21 : 16, 28-31. " Out of the mouth of babes. 1 ' 

Parable of two sons. 

l 145 



146 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Summary 
of these 
passages. 



The note of 
warning 
and judg- 
ment. 



The note of 

mercy. 



9. Matt. 22 : 40. " On these two commandments the whole 
law hangeth." 

10. Matt. 23:2-3, 5, 7 b-10, 15-22, 24,32-33. "On Moses 1 

seat." " To be seen of men." " Be not called Rabbi." 
Proselyting. Blind guides. " Strain out the gnat." 
" Fill up measure of your fathers." 

11. Matt. 25:1-13, 31-46. Parable of the ten virgins. 

Judgment scene. 

These passages consist of four parables, — those of 
the unforgiving servant, of the laborers in the vine- 
yard, of the two sons, and of the ten virgins; con- 
siderable portions of the two discourses on the 
denunciation of the Pharisees and on the Last 
Judgment ; a few short sayings ; and three grouped 
sayings on the child and the childlike qualities 
(18: 3-4, 10, 14). 

It will be seen that the passages peculiar to 
Matthew strongly emphasize, on the one hand, the 
notes of warning and judgment, as in the denuncia- 
tion of the Pharisees (ch. 23), the picture of the 
Last Judgment (ch. 25 ; cf. the eschatological dis- 
course, ch. 24), the parable of the laborers in the 
vineyard (20:1-15), the saying, "Every plant 
which my Heavenly Father planted not shall be 
rooted up " (15 : 13), and the warning concerning 
the "idle word" (12:36-37), illustrating once 
again Jesus' sense of the seriousness of life. 

At the same time, there are as clearly to be seen 
the notes of mercy, humility, and forgiveness, in the 
saying, " I desire mercy, and not sacrifice " (12 : 7), 
in the reference to the rescue of the sheep on the 
Sabbath (12 : n-i2a), in the supreme place given 



editorial 
viewpoint. 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO MATTHEW 1 47 

to the law of love (22 : 40), in the parable of the 
unforgiving servant (18 : 23-35), an( i m the judg- 
ment of life by loving service (25 : 3 1-46). Indeed, 
the warning of judgment is particularly for those 
who show lack of sympathy and love (cf. 10 : 41 ; 
12 : 7, n-i2a; ch. 18). 

In connection with these passages peculiar to Matthew 
Matthew, there is naturally to be raised the ques- 
tion, What is to be found in Matthew's gospel that 
might be referred to the editorial point of view, 
rather than to be thought of as belonging directly 
to Jesus ? 1 For our purposes Allen's brief sum- 
mary in the article on Matthew in the Dictionary 
of Christ and the Gospels may be adopted. At 
three points, he thinks that the influence of the 
editor's own point of view is pretty clearly to be 
seen : as to the permanence of the law, as to the 
near approach of the Kingdom, and as to the scope 
of the gospel. 2 These peculiarities of Matthew 

1 Cf. arts. " Matthew," H. D. B., and Encyclopedia Biblica ; The 
International Critical Commentary, " Matthew," pp. 309 ff. 

2 As to " the permanence of the law," Allen thinks, " it is prob- 
able that we must make allowance here for some over-emphasis due 
to local and national prejudice which interpreted Christ's sayings in 
the direction which the history of the Jewish people seemed to 
warrant" (p. 148). As to "the near approach of the Kingdom," 
Allen reaches this conclusion: "These facts suggest irresistibly the 
conclusion that the editor or the tradition which he follows has, by 
accumulating sayings of one kind, and by modifying others to some 
slight extent in order to give them the required meaning, given the 
impression that the Lord taught a nearness of his coming to in- 
augurate the Kingdom, which goes beyond what he himself origi- 
nally intended" (p. 149). As to narrowing "the scope of the 



I48 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

practically affect no part of the ethical teaching, 
as we have taken the passages, and for these 
passages Schmiedel's statement fairly holds i 1 "It 
is when the purely religious-ethical utterances of 
Jesus come under consideration that we are most 
advantageously placed. Here especially applies 
the maxim laid down that we may accept as cred- 
ible everything that harmonizes with the idea of 
Jesus which has been derived from what we have 
called the foundation-pillars, and is not otherwise 
open to fatal objection. Even though such utter- 
ances may have been liable to Ebionitic heighten- 
ing, and already, as showing traces of this, cannot 
lay claim to literal accuracy — even though they 
may have been unconsciously modified into accord 
with conditions of the Christian community that arose 
only at a later date — even though they may have 
undergone some distortion of their meaning through 
transference to a connection that does not belong 
to them — the spirit which speaks in them is quite 
unmistakable. Here we have a wide field of the 
wholly credible in which to expatiate." 

Since Matthew's version of the Sermon on the 
Mount is deferred for later discussion, it will be 
possible to deal quite briefly with the other special 
ethical passages peculiar to him, guiding the dis- 

Gospel," Allen believes that "here again we must, as it would 
seem, make some allowance for over-emphasis, due partly to artificial 
arrangement of Christ's sayings, partly to a limited insight into their 
true scope and meaning, which was due to past religious training " 
(p. 150). 

1 Encyclopedia Biblica, art. "Gospels," col. 1889. 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO MATTHEW 1 49 

cussion by comparison with " the laws of life " as 
brought out in the doubly attested sayings. 

We find, then, in the first place, that Matthew Love the 
expresses, as clearly as Mark, Jesus' faith in the goa * e * 
goal of life : in his belief in the certain defeat of 
evil, — " Every plant which my heavenly Father 
planted shall not be rooted up" (15 : 13); x in the 
assertion of opportunity for all, in the parable of 
the laborers in the vineyard (20 : 1— 1 5) ; and in the 
conviction that love is the sum of life, in the say- 
ing, " On these two commandments the whole law 
hangeth, and the prophets " (22 : 40), and in the 
standard of the Last Judgment (25 : 31-46). 

At the same time, these sayings of Jesus peculiar The de- 
to Matthew point out clearly the laws of life for mands 
oneself and for his relations to others. For the man individual. 
himself there is the same demand for absolute 
genuineness (23:5, 15-22, 24, 32-33), for inward- 
ness of life (23 : 3, 15-22, 24, 28, 32-33), for vigi- 
lant watchfulness (the parable of the ten virgins, 
25 : 1— 13), and for willingness to obey to the end, 
in the possibility of sacrifice suggested in the say- 
ing : "There are eunuchs, that made themselves 
eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He 
that is able to receive it, let him receive it " (19 : 12). 
The demand for genuineness and inwardness of 
life is seen especially in the denunciation of the 
Pharisees, where (in addition to like sayings in Q) 
Jesus repudiates the motive of being seen of men, 

1 Cf. the positive faith in the triumph of the good in the parables 
of the mustard seed and of the leaven. 



to others. 



150 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

unholy proselytism, the spirit of the blind guide, 
the straining out of the gnat, and the filling up of 
the measure of false fathers. 
Relations As to relations to others, Jesus demands again the 

fundamental and all-embracing spirit of love (22 : 40; 
12:7, 1 1- 1 2 a; 23 : 7b- 10), with its active minister- 
ing service (25 : 31-46), its steady reverence for 
personality (10:41; 18:3-4, I0 > l 4 \ 21:16; 
23:2-3), and its duty of forgiveness (18 : 23-25). 
There is involved at the same time, once more, the 
recognition of the basic value of the childlike quali- 
ties, in the passages in chapter 18, and in 23 :7 b- 
10. Solemn responsibility for one's speech is 
affirmed in the saying concerning the "idle word" 
(12:36-37): "And I say unto you, that every 
idle word that men shall speak, they shall give 
account thereof in the day of judgment. For by 
thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words 
thou shalt be condemned." Tact and adaptation 
are enjoined in the saying, " Be ye therefore wise 
as serpents, and harmless as doves "(10: 16b), and 
in the parable of the scribe of the Kingdom bring- 
ing forth " out of his treasure things new and old " 
(13 : 51-52). And the perpetual need, in judging 
men, of taking account of temperament and the 
final issue of their conduct, is set forth in the par- 
able of the two sons (21 : 28-31). Jesus uses this 
parable specifically, according to Matthew, to con- 
trast the more hopeful attitude of the publicans 
and harlots with the blind rejection of his mes- 
sage by the religious authorities. Not those who 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO MATTHEW 151 

" say," but those who " go," do the will of God 
(21:31-32). 

As one looks back over the spirit, thus demanded The extent 
in relation to others, he sees that it is hardly pos- demands 
sible to put more strongly the insistence upon the here made, 
active ministry of love than in the picture of the 
Last Judgment scene, — " Inasmuch as ye did it 
not unto one of these least," etc. Has the church 
ever recognized how deep-going Jesus' utterance 
here is ? 1 

The spirit of reverence for the person also is 
expressed most decisively in the requirement of 
the spirit of a little child (18 : 3-4), in the saying, 
" See that ye despise not one of these little ones" 
(18 : 10), and in the further saying, " Even so it is 
not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that 
one of these little ones should perish " (18:14). 
And the unthinkableness that the unforgiving 
spirit should accompany the loving life is set forth 
in the parable of the unforgiving servant (18 : 23- 
35), in almost the only language of sarcasm which 
Jesus is known to have employed. The unforgiv- 
ing spirit inevitably shuts out from life (18 : 34-35). 

All this is only to say that the ethical notes of Summary. 
Jesus' teaching, as they come out in these teaching 
passages peculiar to Matthew, confirm the trends 
previously seen, and fit harmoniously into them. 
There can be no mistaking, thus, the earnestness 
of Jesus and his sense of the seriousness of life, 
in these passages in Matthew, no mistaking his 

iCf. The Creed of Christ, pp. 16-18. 



152 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Amount 
and credi- 
bility of 
material 
peculiar to 
Luke. 



Passages 
in Luke here 
to be con- 
sidered. 



demand for genuineness and inwardness in the 
moral life, no doubt of his insistence on reverence 
for the person in relation to others, no doubt that 
religion seems to him ethical through and through. 
The sense of the contrast of his teaching with that 
of his times is also manifest; and at the same time 
the spirit of compassion permeates the whole. 

II. The peculiar teaching in Luke} 

Hawkins estimates that 612 verses out of 1149 
in Luke are peculiar to him ; and this material pe- 
culiar to Luke includes, in Plummer's summary, 6 
miracles and 18 parables. 2 The large amount of 
this peculiar material in Luke, most of which, so 
far as the teaching is concerned, there seems no 
reason to question, 3 naturally requires a somewhat 
extended treatment. When this material peculiar 
to Luke is carefully surveyed, omitting the narra- 
tive material, the non-ethical passages, the parallels 
to the Sermon on the Mount, and passages already 
covered or virtually covered, we have left (follow- 
ing Hawkins' classification) for special considera- 
tion here the following list of passages : — 

1. Longer sections peculiar to Luke. 

1) 7 : 40-50. Simon and the woman ; and the parable of 
the two debtors. 



1 Cf. Swete, Studies in the Teaching of Our Lord, pp. 97 ff. 

2 See Bebb, art. " Luke," H. D. B. ; Hawkins, Hora Synoptica, 
pp. 158 ff. ; Plummer, International Critical Commentary, " Luke," 
p. xli. 

3 Cf. Wright, art. "Luke," D. C. G., p. 88: « It would be mere 
scepticism to throw much doubt on these utterances." See also 
Wernle, Sources of Our Knotvledge of the Life of Jesus, pp. 145 ff., 152, 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 53 

2) 9 : 62. " No man having put his hand to the plow," etc. 

3) 10 : 28-37. Parable of the Good Samaritan. 

4) 12 : 14-21, 47-50. Avaricious brother; parable of the 

rich fool ; " Beaten with many stripes " ; and " bap- 
tism to be baptized with." 

5) 13:2-5,6-9, 15-16. The slain Galileans. Parable of 

barren fig tree. Ox and woman. 

6) 14:7-11, 12-14, 28-33. Parable of the chief seats. 

" When thou makest a dinner." Counting the cost. 

7) 15 : 8-32. Parables of lost coin and lost son. 

8) 16:1-12, 14-15, 19-31- Parable of the unrighteous 

steward. Comment on scoffing of Pharisees. Parable 
of rich man and Lazarus. 

9) 17 : 7-10. Parable of extra service. 

10) 18 : 9-14. Parable of Pharisee and publican. 

11) 19 : 9-10. As to Zacchaeus. 

2. Shorter passages, excluding virtual repetitions. 

1) 12:35-38. "Let your loins be girded about," etc. 

Cf. 21 : 34-36. 

2) 21 : 19. " In your patience ye shall win your souls." 

3) 23 : 34. " Father, forgive them ; for they know not 

what they do." 1 

1 The " longer sections " in this material peculiar to Luke include 
13 parables and 8 shorter sayings. These 13 parables, out of 
Plummer's 18, may be regarded as distinctly ethical, and omit from 
consideration, thus, the parables of the great supper and of the 
pounds, as already virtually covered in the parables of the marriage 
of the king's son and of the talents; the parable of the watchful 
servants as only amplifying teaching already considered; as well as 
the parables of the friend at midnight, and the unrighteous judge, 
as not directly ethical. These 13 parables are the parables of the 
two debtors, of the Good Samaritan, of the rich fool, of the barren 
fig tree, of the chief seats, of the rash builder, of the rash king, of 
the lost coin, of the lost son, of the unrighteous steward, of the rich 
man and Lazarus, of the unprofitable servants, and of the Pharisee 
and the publican. 

The 8 shorter sayings are the sayings concerning putting the 



154 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The notes 
of mercy 
and warning. 



The notes of 
warning 
and mercy 
not incon- 
sistent. 



Two aspects of the teaching of Jesus stand out 
here in Luke, in these " longer sections," as in the 
material peculiar to Matthew, — the aspect of gra- 
ciousness and the aspect of warning ; and, as there, 
the warning is directed impliedly against those who 
refuse to take on the life of love. The note of gra- 
cious mercy 1 comes out in the parables of the two 
debtors, of the Good Samaritan, of the lost coin, of 
the lost son, and of the Pharisee and the publican, 
as well as in the sayings concerning the ox and the 
woman, the Galileans, the falling of the tower of 
Siloam, making a dinner, and concerning Zacchaeus. 
The note of warning comes out not less unmistak- 
ably in the parables of the rich fool, of the barren 
fig tree, of the chief seats, of the rash builder, of 
the rash king, of the unrighteous steward, of the 
rich man and Lazarus, of extra service, and of the 
Pharisee and the publican ; and in the sayings con- 
cerning putting the hand to the plow and concern- 
ing fire and baptism, and in the answer to the 
scoffing of the Pharisees. 

It is plain at once, from this very brief survey, 
how impossible it is to connect with Matthew, on 
the one hand, simply the note of warning and 

hand to the plow (9:62), the servant beaten with many stripes 
(12:47-48), the fire and the baptism (12:49-50), the Galileans 
slain by Pilate, and the falling of the tower in Siloam (13: 2-5), 
the ox and the woman (13 : 15-16; cf. 14:5), the making of a 
dinner (14: 12-14), Jesus' answer to the Pharisaic scoffing (16: 14- 
15), the saying as to Zacchaeus (19:9-10), and the saying con- 
cerning the changed conditions which the disciples must face (22 : 
35-38). 1 Cf. Swete, op. cit., pp. 117 ff. 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 55 

judgment, or with Luke, on the other, simply that 
of grace and mercy. In fact, in this peculiar mate- 
rial, Luke has more parables of warning than of 
grace. But both Evangelists present the teaching 
of Jesrs as having inevitably this double aspect. 
For it is impossible to come to see that the very 
life of God is the loving life, and not see at the 
same time the solemn seriousness that attaches to 
life, in the necessity of this choice of the loving life 
for oneself ; and that if that choice of the loving 
life is not made, dwindling life must follow. It is 
the very urgency of grace, therefore, which is to 
be found not less in the passages of warning than 
in those of tender invitation. This is the inevitable 
fact, that some critics of the teaching of Jesus seem 
to have quite failed to see. 

Of the 1 1 3 verses of shorter peculiar variations Luke's 
in Luke which Hawkins makes out, there are only sho ^ 

1 J variations. 

two that are directly ethical that have not been al- 
ready virtually covered : the single sentence, " In 
your patience ye shall win your souls" (21 : 19), 
and the prayer on the cross, " Father, forgive them ; 
for they know not what they do " (23 : 34) ; though 
it should be noted that these passages do include 
an emphatic amplification of the exhortation to 
vigilant watchfulness. 

The discussion of Luke's peculiar material natu- The two 
rally falls into two divisions : the consideration of qJ v J^ ns 
the so-called " parables of grace " with their re- discussion. 
lated sayings, and the consideration of the parables 
of warning and the sayings akin to these. 



156 



THE ETHICS OF J] 



Faith and 
love over 
against 
suspicion 
and pride. 



I. To turn to Luke's characteristic parables of 
gi'ace, the first is found in the story of Simon and 
the woman, with its parable of the two debtors 
(7 •' 36-50). 1 One hesitates to touch this beautiful 
story ; if it could be read with simple full under- 
standing it were enough. The story is character- 
istic of Luke, as intended to show Christ's breadth 
of sympathy and kindly touch, both in eating with 
the Pharisee, and in forgiving the sinner. There 
is here illustrated the artistic selection by Luke of 
an incident that brings out these points in vivid 
pictorial contrasts. The whole incident is an em- 
bodiment of penitent loving faith on the part of 
the woman and trusting and forgiving love on the 
part of Jesus, against the background of cold lack 
of sympathy and suspicion and pride that has no 
sense of need. The incident brings Jesus into 
touch with the two marked classes of his time, 
the Pharisees on the one hand, and the publicans 
and sinners on the other, — his world in little. It 
illustrates in the case of one Pharisee, of evidently 
broader mind than was usual, still the greater ease 
with which Jesus could reach, with his message of 
a Father of forgiving love, the recognized sinner 
than the respectable Pharisee. This concrete sit- 
uation of his time had its own part, no doubt, in 
leading Jesus to his emphasis upon humility and 
trust as the fundamental qualities of the religious 
life, and to his corresponding sense of the damn- 
ing nature of the sins of contemptuous pride and 

1 Cf, Matheson, Studies in the Portrait of Jesus, vol. II, pp. 94 ff. 



tude of 
separation. 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 57 

distrust. These sins Jesus feels to be deadly, 
both for oneself and for others. For oneself, be- 
cause pride prevents all sense of need, all teach- 
ableness, and therefore all growth ; while distrust 
prevents one's believing in the love of God and of 
men, and believing the worst gets only the worst. 
For others, because we cannot win men by patro- 
nizing them ; we must understand them ; that 
is, we must see their likeness to us, and so get 
some sympathy with them, and respect for them ; 
while distrust, at the same time, breeds its own 
suspicions. 

The story illustrates, also, the point of view of The atti 
the Pharisee, in his thought of the mark of the 
prophet (v. 39). That mark he felt would be the 
discernment of the sinner, and consequent instant 
unsympathetic separation from her, instead of love 
and a sympathetic redeeming of the wrongdoer to 
righteousness. It is the folly and sin of this spirit, 
as constituting too much the sum total of the state's 
entire attitude toward the evildoer, to which our 
generation is slowly awakening. Just here lies 
the strength of much of Tolstoy's constant con- 
tention in his Resurrection. For Luke brings out 
more clearly than any of the other gospels the 
fact that Jesus' quarrel with the Pharisaic point 
of view is not only with their externalism, but 
with their negative conception of righteousness 
as separation from evil. The separatism to which 
their very name points, permeates all their reli- 
gious thought. So God is conceived as separating 



158 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

himself from sinners ; so the godly man ; so the 
way of life. Simon sees not only no mark of 
divineness in Jesus in his tender, sympathetic, 
forgiving love, but rather evidence that he is not 
a prophet at all. This will come out still more 
clearly in the parable of the lost son, in the set- 
ting which Luke gives it. 
The parable One might perhaps paraphrase Jesus' answer 
debtors. to Simon's evident inner disapproval, in the par- 

able of the two debtors and in his words, " Where- 
fore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, 
are forgiven ; for she loved much : but to whom 
little is forgiven, the same loveth little" (v. 47), — 
by saying, Her abundant love shows the fruits of 
forgiveness, shows her own sense of deep sin, and 
shows in her penitence her sense that she has 
been forgiven much; and it is her faith (v. 50), 
which was called out by my attitude of sympa- 
thetic love — not by unsympathetic, hard condem- 
nation and withdrawal from her — exactly this that 
has drawn her out of her sin into desire for right- 
eousness, — into the loving life, exactly this that 
has "saved" her. Her sins are forgiven (v. 48); 
she is saved now in real reconciliation of purpose 
and aim with God, in peace (v. 50) as a child of 
the Father. 
Daring to And, even in the merely ethical aspect, our 

use the 

highest modern life calls everywhere for this sympathetic 

forces. redeeming spirit of Jesus. In the Christian era 

there have been centuries of blundering of an al- 
most criminal kind in dealing with the child and 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 59 

with the wrongdoer. All the gains in modern 
prison discipline and reform and in the criminal 
courts lie in the direction of this spirit of Jesus, 
in the aim to redeem the criminal to a useful and 
righteous life, as the best possible protection of 
society; in the consequent aim, therefore, to 
understand the man, to respect him, to awaken 
him to self-respect, to . call out his respect and 
love, to help him to self-conquest by faith and 
love — the mightiest of all forces. All this is no 
sentimental namby-pambyism, but the determina- 
tion to pay the cost of using the really strongest 
forces for bringing men into righteousness, instead 
of the weakest forces — physical force and vio- 
lence — simply to restrain them from evil. It is 
the chief glory of Judge Lindsey's work, and the 
deepest secret of his achievement, that he has 
dared to trust the highest forces. Is it too much 
to hope that in the widespread recognition of work 
like that of Judge Lindsey, a great new divine prin- 
ciple and spirit are coming into government, into 
the interpretation of law, into social and civic life, 
— a new faith that we can trust the highest forces, 
those which Jesus himself dared to use ? 

Luke's second peculiar parable, that of the Good Parable of 
Samaritan (10: 30-37), while it is a parable of the ^marital 
loving life, is just as plainly, of course, a parable 
of warning against the unloving spirit. Whether 
Luke is right in the setting that he gives to this 
parable or not, as told in answer to the question, 
" Who is my neighbor ? " — and there seems to me 



6o 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



A minister- 
ing love. 



Response 
to need. 



to have been some rather supercilious criticism 
this point, — it is at least plain that the parable 
does set forth the true neighborly spirit. And 
whether or not it was immediately connected with 
the saying summing up the law in love, Luke 
cannot be mistaken in seeing in the story, as told 
by Jesus, a practical illustration of the love that he 
demanded. 

Without pressing in any way the details of the 
parable, three things at least stand out. In the 
first place, there is here to be seen Jesus' deep 
conviction that the loving life demands expression, 
is not merely a mood, to be sentimentally indulged 
in private, but is active and ministering. (Cf. 
Matt. 25:31-46; and John 13:1-16.) It is no 
mere pity, but a practical showing of mercy. Pity 
the priest and the Levite may have had, but they 
quite lacked a love that manifested constant 
thoughtfulness, willingness to put oneself out, to 
take pains, not to excuse oneself on account of 
the pressure of other things. They had " engage- 
ments " probably, and wanted to avoid " uncom- 
fortable entanglements." 

In the second place, Jesus' illustrative interpre- 
tation of the law of love, if this parable is so to be 
taken, is to keep men from emptying that love of 
all its real content. There is no real love, in Jesus' 
thought, where one is not willing to recognize and 
minister to the son of the Father in each man, ac- 
cording to his need. The "neighbor," the parable 
teaches, is the man in need. 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE l6l 

In the third place, it is not by accident that the Tolerance, 
hero of this story is a Samaritan, not a priest nor 
a Levite. Jesus so emphasizes the central point 
of his answer to the lawyer, if Luke's setting is 
correct, that eternal life is in love alone, not in 
orthodoxy, not in religious practices, not in holy 
office; and so illustrates at the same time the 
spirit of broad tolerance which must grow out of 
the recognition of the loving spirit in all men. 

But the two great outstanding parables of grace, Luke 15. 
of course, peculiar to Luke, are the parables of the 
lost coin and the lost son (15 :8-io, n-32). And 
if Bruce might say that for Mark's two peculiar 
sayings his whole gospel was worth preservation, 
surely we may say of Luke that it would have 
been worth preservation for the single story of the 
lost son. His 15th chapter, indeed, including the 
parable, contained in the other gospels, of the lost 
sheep, may be said to be his great peculiar and 
characteristic chapter. It contains, to his mind 
evidently, as to ours, the very heart of Christ's 
whole teaching. 

Luke's setting of the parables has been ques- Luke's 
tioned, and in any case it may well be noted that ^pLables 
the significance of the teaching of the parable in chapter 
does not depend upon this setting ; but for myself, I5 ' 
in verses 1-2, Luke seems accurately to give the 
circumstances, for the parables exactly fit the situa- 
tion there described. Jesus' universal sympathy 
and desire to help are manifestly showing them- 
selves more and more. The " publicans and sin- 



1 62 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Contrasted 
views of 
holiness. 



The 

Pharisaic 
theory of 
holiness. 



Jesus' 
view of 
holiness. 



ners " are consequently " drawing near " to him 
increasingly. This very thing leads to growing 
criticism on the part of the Scribes and Pharisees, 
who see in the publicans and sinners his favorite 
associates, and in this, evidence that he is himself 
but a poor saint and a poor teacher of religion. 
The mere fact that he thus welcomes these com- 
parative outcasts settles the matter for them. 
There is no feeling of joy in the thought that 
these are being won to something better, to life 
and good and God. 

The two attitudes of the Pharisees and of 
Christ turn on two quite contrasted views of holi- 
ness, still prevailing. 

The Pharisaic theory makes holiness freedom 
from all contamination of evil, where evil is treated 
as the positive force, like soiling dirt. Here 
holiness is shown by punctilious separation from 
all possible contagion of the evil. The initial 
intent of the Pharisee was good ; but his position 
involved plain dangers : assuming that oneself is 
right and superior to others ; a total lack of appre- 
ciation and of sympathy with others and willing- 
ness truly to do for them ; and consequent failure 
in love, and failure to see that only this positive 
love really counts, or can be any adequate defense 
against evil. Holiness becomes here exclusiveness, 
separation from the contamination of death. 

From Jesus' point of view, it is rather true that 
holiness is wholeness, health, and its contagion of 
life. He believes that health is more contagious 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 63 

than disease, and righteousness than evil, and that 
the great protection against evil is abounding love 
and righteousness, just as the great protection 
against disease is abounding health. From this 
point of view, therefore, the saint must bring his 
touch of life ; he cannot be allowed to shut himself 
off from the rest of men ; and the only way to 
promote holiness among men is for the whole life, 
the healthy life, the life of God, to be brought into 
touch with the imperfect, the diseased, and the 
sinful. This view assumes that holiness or love, 
not evil, is the great positive force, and is itself 
the only true defense against evil. Holiness, for 
Jesus, is God's life ; and that life, Jesus is ever show- 
ing — and here especially — is love, the tender, 
gracious, tireless, seeking love of God. For Christ, 
therefore, we come into holiness in just the pro- 
portion in which we share that sympathy and love 
of God in our relation to others. 

All the three parables, thus, of the chapter, — Jesus' 
the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and ^ e p se al m 
the lost son, are (i) a direct answer to the Phari- parables. 
saic criticism by (2) revealing the love of God in 
an appeal to their own feeling and reason, and (3) 
so showing that the only attitude for men to take 
is not the attitude of Pharisaic exclusiveness, but 
the same longing, seeking love which God has for 
all his children. Jesus seeks to stir the pity and 
love even of the Pharisees in appeal to their own 
experience, and so to help them to see the inevi- 
tableness of his own course with the publicans and 



164 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The cloth- 
ing of the 
parables. 



sinners. This is the force of the appeal in the 4th 
verse, for example, "What man of you." (4) It 
should be noticed, thus, that Jesus is drawing ten- 
derly near to both classes in the appeal of these 
parables. The Pharisees, too, are among the most 
needy of God's sons, whom also the Father seeks, 
whom, therefore, Jesus must earnestly strive to 
win, even though they may be less responsive 
than the so-called "sinners." And the appeal to 
the elder son, in verse 31, — " child " — is a direct 
and tender appeal to the Pharisees. 

These three simple, appealing stories, thus, of 
the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, 
break forth, as inevitably, from the heart and lips 
of Christ. 

The parables are so simple and direct that their 
clothing requires no special attention ; and the 
great outstanding truths of all three are so much 
the same, that the parables need not be treated 
separately. I see nothing to confirm the reason- 
ableness of Pfleiderer's theory that the story of 
the elder brother, in the parable of the prodigal 
son, does not belong to Jesus' original utterance. 
In fact, it fits exactly into the general circum- 
stances in which Jesus found himself, and is a di- 
rect and powerful part of Jesus' answer to the 
Pharisees' common complaint. It is wholly worthy 
of the rest of the parable. Jesus' thought, indeed, 
would be incomplete without it. 

I am, of course, not forgetting that the primary 
significance of these parables is religious, in setting 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE l6$ 

forth the gracious and tireless seeking love of Ethical 
God ; but nevertheless, the parables cannot be left ^n^u? "" 
out of account in any adequate setting forth of the form. 
ethical teaching of Jesus either, because this spirit 
which is here ascribed to God must, of course, be 
at the same time a picture of the ideal attitude that 
Jesus must demand from every man. They be- 
long, therefore, to the very heart of his ethical 
teaching, as well as constitute the center of his 
"good tidings of God." We shall therefore prob- 
ably best get at the ethical implications by stat- 
ing first simply the teaching of the parable in its 
plain, primary religious significance. 

The great outstanding truths of the parables of The 
Luke 15, then, may be said to be these :— T^rabL 

(1) God is not a taskmaster or legal accountant, God no 
with a set of arbitrary rules and laws to judge you taskmaster - 
by or reward you for, without pity or mercy or 
love, as the Pharisees conceived, and many others 
still conceive. One needs to get thoroughly rid 
of this blasphemous and untrue idea of God. 
God's severity is the fidelity of love, that would 
hold a child to the lines of his largest life, and 
that only, — that would bring him back to himself, 
to life and to God. It is impossible to fit the Phari- 
saic attitude toward sinning, needy men into the 
character of God. Each of the three parables em- 
phatically denies this possibility. Try to conceive 
the possibility : " The valued sheep is lost ; curse 
it and let it go. The cherished coin of the per- 
sonal treasure dowry is gone ; make no attempt to 



1 66 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



find it ; forget it and let it go. The son has gone 
out from the father's house to a life away from all 
sympathy with the father ; he richly deserves his 
swine-feeding fate ; curse him and forget him." 
The parables show that Jesus knows no such God. 
As over against every such attitude toward sinning 
men, he appeals even to men's own more merciful 
attitude toward sheep. 
God cares. (2) God cares. Jesus is insisting upon the fact 

that God cares, as over against the hopeless, deso- 
late, desperate feeling that sometimes comes, that 
"nobody cares what becomes of me." God cares; 
heaven is interested. This is the reiterated insist- 
ence of the parables (vv. 7, 10, 22, 32). Those in- 
telligences, in closest sympathy with God, seeing 
values most clearly and surely, care. After all, 
what is so great as a man ? What value is to be 
reckoned for him ? An animal one may come to 
care greatly for, a coin to prize ; but what shall 
make good the lost son? Distance, separation, 
death, diminished strength or health or opportu- 
nity of a child, — all these may be causes for sor- 
row. But what comparison do any or all of them 
bear to the single fact that a child has turned his 
back on righteousness and life and God ? As 
surely and as deeply as you know even the human 
heart at its best (v. 4), you may know that God 
cares for this child of his, of infinite possibilities, 
but now gone wrong. Even the shepherd cares 
for the sheep, the woman for the lost coin, the 
human father for the rebellious, willful son ; " how 



>ne 




THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 67 

much more " God cares ! This is the simple, in- 
evitable truth to the mind of Jesus. " You are a 
child of God," Jesus is here repeatedly asserting. 
He cares. You are " missed " at home. The 
other sheep are in the fold ; the rest of the pre- 
cious string of coins are in the hand ; the other 
children are at home. But you are away, and you 
are missed, sorely missed; and no joy is complete, 
nay, all joy is tinged with sadness, for you are 
missed. 

(3) All these parables make not less clear that, The seeking 
just because God cares, he seeks men, and rejoices love of God * 
in the return of men to himself. So Erskine can 
say : " What is Christianity ? It is the belief in 
the inexhaustible love of God for man. He came 
to seek that which is lost, until he find it." 1 This 
seeking and rejoicing love of God is so clearly in- 
volved in the previous thought that God cares, 
that it hardly needs to be dwelt upon. Numerous 
details in the parables bring out both the tireless 
seeking and the great joy in the return, with its 
contrasted implied grief in the wandering. Jesus' 
contention seems to be that we have a right to 
believe that God does bear witness to himself in 
the glad sacrificial longings, seekings, and suffer- 
ings of the best human love. Is he not himself so 
speaking in us ? Contrast with Jesus' saying con- 
cerning the "joy in heaven" the awful saying of 
the Pharisees quoted by Plummer, "There is joy 

1 Quoted by Moffatt, Literary Illustrations of the Bible : St. 
Luke, p. 105. 



1 68 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

before God when those who provoke him perish 
from the world." Here is no least sense of men as 
children of God. 
Man made (4) In particular, the parables mean that man is 

for God. made for God and for the life with God. Going 
away from God, to Christ's thought, is going into 
" a far country," not native to us, where desolation 
is certain. With God is the source of all life and 
light and joy, because he is the source of all love. 
With him, therefore, and in the sharing of his 
great purposes and ends, alone is life. And all 
this means that man only " comes to himself " 
when he comes back to God. That is finding one- 
self, coming home, coming into life. This is 
Christ's conception of the very meaning of re- 
ligion, — that it is life, the sharing of God's own 
life. 
The un- (5) And the latter part of the parable of the 

s°lrit S prodigal son has its own insistent lesson : one may 

as really go away from the Father by the way of 
the unloving spirit, as by the way of appetite and 
passion. The parable in truth ought to be called 
the parable of the two lost sons. 

In each case the sin lies in the refusal to take 
the father's attitude and will, — to live the unself- 
ish, truly loving life of God. The son who has 
no joynn a brother brought back to real sonship, 
brought out of sin back to the father and to life 
with the father, is himself no true son of the 
father. His unloving spirit is as far from the 
father's heart as is " the far country " from 




THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 69 

the father's house. This is distance from God. 
The father, therefore, in his love for the elder 
son, and his desire to win him, too, entreats (v. 28), 
tenderly expostulates (v. 31), sorrowfully rebukes 
(v. 32). 

The " elder son " represents the very spirit in 
the Pharisees which Jesus set out to rebuke, and 
out of which he was trying to win them. And 
yet how readily we still see the sin of the younger 
son as compared with the sin of the elder, who yet 
has no real love (this is the real point of all the 
parables), who cannot conceive or enter into the 
father's feeling toward either the sinning or the re- 
pentant son, or into the father's joy over his boy's 
return in his right mind, who is not able even to 
take the part of neighbors rejoicing over a sheep 
found. 

(6) To be "lost," this parable indicates, is to be Being lost 
lost away from God. As Emerson says, " Profli- ^ from 
gacy consists not in spending years of time or 
chests of money, but in spending them off the line 
of your career" In like manner, to be "lost," is 
to be lost off the line of God's own will for us, lost 
away from home, and from the Father's presence 
and from the loving spirit of his life. To be 
"saved," on the other hand, is, once more, the 
simple sharing in the Father's life and in his love 
for men. There is no other way than these of 
being either " lost " or " saved." 

I have ventured, thus, to express somewhat 
fully the plain religious teaching of Jesus in these 



I/O THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the 

ethical j ost s because it has seemed to me that only so 

teaching ' J 

of these could the full significance of their ethical teaching 

parables. be best brought out. (i) If, in the thought of 
Jesus, God may not take the attitude of task- 
master, or legal accountant, still less may man in 
his relation to his fellowman. (2) If it must be 
required even of God that he should care un- 
ceasingly for every man, not less must be asked 
from men in their relation to each other. The 
ethics of Jesus requires that the good of no man 
shall be to us an alien thing ; that his loss to right- 
eousness and good and happiness and life shall 
be to us no indifferent thing. (3) And not less 
clearly the teaching of these parables shows that 
even the ethics of Jesus must demand that a life 
that he can think of as at all ideal must have the 
positive seeking quality in it, and the great joy in 
the coming of any man to himself, in his coming 
back into the true life. (4) And the religious 
proposition that man is made for God and for the 
life with God has an ethical meaning that cannot 
be spared. It is, once more, the conviction which 
must underlie all our moral struggle and all our 
social endeavor, that man is a fundamentally ethi- 
cal being and cannot come into largest life apart 
from the fulfillment of his ethical ideals, that he 
never truly comes to himself until he takes on all 
to which the moral laws of his being call him. 
(5) And the ethical lesson of the latter part of 
the parable of the lost son is not less unmistakable 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE I/I 

and not to be spared. It expresses Jesus' clear 
insight, that one may fail in the truly ethical life 
quite as certainly by way of hard lack of sympathy 
as by way of appetite and passion. This is only 
another inevitable inference from Jesus' funda- 
mental notion of life as love. 

With the teaching of these parables is to be con- 
nected immediately Jesus' saying in his words to 
Zacchaeus, " For the Son of man came to seek and 
to save that which was lost" (19 : 10). 

With these parables of grace may be associated Love above 
three of the shorter sayings of Jesus peculiar to ^ on ^ stltu " 
Luke. The first illustrates, again, that sense of 
the supremacy of love above all institutions, and 
that conviction that even the highest of these in- 
stitutions, the Sabbath, " is made for man, and not 
man for the sabbath" (which we have already 
seen reflected in the doubly attested sayings, and 
in Mark) : " Ye hypocrites, doth not each one of 
you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the 
stall, and lead him away to watering ? And ought 
not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, 
whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, 
to have been loosed from this bond on the day of 
the sabbath?" (13:15-16; cf. also 14:5). The 
indignation Jesus here feels is at the purely legal 
spirit which his objectors show, the total deadness 
to the work of mercy. Christ argues here in act, 
as well as in word, once again, that even the high- 
est of all observances and institutions have their 
sole right to exist on their ground of service to 



172 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



and 



men, for love's sake only ; they may never stand 
in the way of the service of love. 
Need, not The same spirit of really unselfish service is 

STuidT 6 ' ur S ed in the brief Paragraph (14: 12-14), "When 
of love. thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy 

friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor 
rich neighbors ; lest haply they also bid thee again, 
and a recompense be made thee," etc. The prin- 
ciple underlying this whole exhortation seems 
clearly to be, Give yourself and your service where 
they are needed, and not for "recompense." 
Need, not recompense, is constantly to guide the 
loving life. Jesus is not laying down, I suppose, 
a social rule, but he is declaring a great principle, 
and going back to the heart of the matter. He is 
virtually asking those to whom he speaks to deter- 
mine their controlling motive : Do you really mean 
to serve in love's name ? And will you serve with 
genuine unselfishness, not for recompense, but in 
answer to need ? Some of the neediest may, in 
truth, be among the rich and the near of kin ; they 
may need deeply your expressed friendship and 
the touch of other friendly lives. On the other 
hand, some commonly counted needy might resent 
the formal social invitation as patronizing. In 
that case you must find some other way of giving 
yourself to them that will show plain respect for 
them. The principle is that an unselfish love must 
guide in social life, as everywhere else. Is there 
any doubt that this principle of Jesus would not 
only greatly simplify society life, but make it vastly 
better worth while ? 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 73 

The words of grace which this peculiar material Forgiving 
in Luke puts in the mouth of Jesus may fittingly love ' 
be concluded with the prayer on the cross and its 
far reach of understanding, forgiving love, " Father, 
forgive them; for they know not what they do." 
Doubtless it is no intended teaching ; but it ex- 
presses in his own life the spirit that, beyond ques- 
tion, he believed should characterize every disciple 
of the true life. Even as he could not conceive 
that God should fail in forgiving love, so he may 
not admit that love has reached its fulfillment in 
men until it can voice itself in even such a prayer 
as this. 

2. When we turn from this gracious aspect of The aspect 
the teaching of Tesus to the aspect of judgment of i ud g m f nt 

. . and warning. 

and warning, it is to be remembered that we have 
already seen, in the survey of the entire teaching 
of Jesus as set forth in Luke, that his whole central 
section, chapters n to 16, can well be considered 
as warning against the Pharisaic spirit in its vari- 
ous manifestations. Here belong the parable of 
the rich fool, with its warning against selfish en- 
grossment in things (12:14-21); the incident of 
the Galileans and the tower of Siloam, with its 
warning against uncharitable judgment on account 
of calamities, and against forgetting the absolute 
need of life in the individual (13 : 1-5); the par- 
able of the barren fig tree, with its warning against 
fruitlessness, mere harmlessness of life (13:6-9); 
the parable of the chief seats, with its warning 
against self -exaltation (14:7-11); the parables of 



174 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

the rash builder and the rash king, with their de- 
mand that one should count the cost of discipleship 
(14 : 28-33), w ith which are to be taken the saying 
as to putting one's hand to the plow (9 : 62), and 
the application of the same principle to his own 
life, " I came to cast fire upon the earth," etc. 
(12:49-50); the parable of the unrighteous 
steward (16: 1— 13), with its demand for foresight 
in the spiritual life, and for the true use of riches, 
and that of the rich man and Lazarus (16: 19-31), 
with its insistence on the inevitable consequences 
of the abuse of riches ; the parable of extra service 
(17: 7-10), with its demand upon the disciple of 
the true life for patient readiness for the most 
exacting service ; and the parable of the Pharisee 
and the publican, with its rebuke of self-complacent 
pride and its exaltation of humble penitence. 
The parable In the parable of the rich fool, with the introduc- 
tory incident of the avaricious brother, Jesus is not 
only warning against the spirit of covetousness, 
but giving the motives which may be used against 
this spirit. Jesus sums up his entire argument 
against the covetous life in the sentence, "A 
man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth." The motives against 
covetousness in this paragraph of the teaching of 
Jesus may be thus summarized : (1) life lies not in 
things (v. 15); (2) put the growth of the self over 
against the growth of things (vv. 19-20); (3) re- 
member the danger of the benumbing effects of 
material prosperity (w. 17-19); (4) merely mate- 



of the rich 
fool. 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1/5 

rial aims shut out all really great ambitions ; one 
can, then, only "build greater" barns, and mul- 
tiply things, instead of building a greater life, and 
multiplying interests in common with the Kingdom 
of God (vv. 1 8-21); (5) and the covetous life 
means inevitable, irretrievable defeat in the end; 
it is not " rich toward God " ; there is no shar- 
ing of the eternal purposes and life of God 
(v. 21). 

The parable of the watchful servants (12 : 35-48), The parable 
while only a part of it peculiar to Luke, does mass of th ? r , 

. . , . -, . ., watchful 

the motives against the ungirt life and to vigilant servants, 
watchfulness as no other single connected passage 
in the teaching of Jesus, and may properly, there- 
fore, find connected treatment at this point. Jesus 
seems to think of the Pharisaic spirit as having 
crept in through failure to be true to the light al- 
ready given, and so smothering further light. In 
the words of Professor Peabody, " Spiritual insen- 
sibility is not an intellectual, but a moral defect — 
the sheer indolence and satiety of a loose and 
ungirt habit of life." Moral blindness (vv. 54-59) 
and inability to face the stern crises (vv. 49-53) 
are the natural result of the ungirt, indolent life 
( vv « 35-48). Vigilant watchfulness, therefore, is 
the price of all attainment. Lack of watchfulness, 
in Christ's thought, belongs, thus, among the great 
enemies of life ; and in this passage he brings the 
following motives to bear : — 

(1) Every man is a servant put in trust with life 
and capacities. This calls for the vigilant alert- 



176 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

ness of servants momentarily expecting their lord's 
return (vv. 35-36). 

(2) Our watchful fidelity has the great reward 
of the approval of our Lord, and of his own giving 
of himself in larger measure to us. God does not 
forget untarnished fidelity to great trusts under 
trial. Our very life is blessed thereby (v. 37). 

(3) The greater the trial in which one is true, 
the greater the honor of the life (v. 38). 

(4) Neglect and negligence are never safe. There 
is no good or safe time to fall below one's best. 
" Be ye also ready " (vv. 39-40). 

(5) The motive of trust for others, as well as 
for oneself (for in verses 41-48 Jesus seems to 
be speaking to the disciples as leaders). The 
higher the calling, the greater the trust and the 
need of watchfulness. The leader can least of all 
afford the ungirt life. He must be worthy, and 
more than worthy, of his best associates ; and 
every man needs for his own upgirding the 
thought that if he fails, he imperils not himself 
alone but many others ; if he conquers, he wins 
not for himself alone, but adds strength to other 
lives also (vv. 41-43). 

(6) Fidelity means still larger trusts, ever larger 
opportunities crowding in on the life. Not only, 
then, because of the trusts already given, but also 
for the sake of the vastly larger trusts in store, 
that are jeopardized by every lack of watchfulness, 
one is to be faithful (v. 44). 

(7) Resist the subtle temptation which urges 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 77 

that the fact of the high place of service, already 
won, allows laxness and use of the intrusted 
power for selfish tyranny. Be doubly on your 
guard against the beguilements of your own success 
(v. 45). Success and power are sterner triers of 
the souls of men than hardship and defeat. The 
fatal series too often is this : a little success, con- 
sequent laxness, laziness, easy self-indulgence, 
excusing oneself from hard things, tyranny over 
others, failure to grow, degeneration, and defeat. 

(8) The certain and inevitable penalty of abuse 
of trust is to be borne in mind. One cannot play 
false and have the reward of honest fidelity. His 
building is false ; in some hour of stress it will 
tumble about his ears. Literally "his portion is 
with the unfaithful " (v. 46). 

(9) Judgment is according to light. Where 
much is given, as to the favored and to leaders, 
there much shall be required. Your greater trust 
requires not less but greater watchfulness, not less 
but greater fidelity (vv. 47-48). 

These motives against the ungirt life, while These 
there clearly underlies them all in the mind of f 101 ™ 

J funda- 

Jesus religious conviction, are still all, at the same mentally 
time, capable of definite ethical interpretation, and et Ica ' 
belong, thus, clearly enough to his distinct ethical 
teaching. For ethical should certainly bring out 
the motives to conduct. 

The story of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate Luke 
had mingled with their sacrifices, and of those I3 : 1_s * 
upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, with Jesus' 

N 



178 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

question, " Think ye that these were sinners above 
all ? " and his answer — "I tell you, Nay, but ex- 
cept ye repent, ye shall all in like manner perish," 
— is a plain double warning, first, against unchar- 
itable judgment of others on account of calamities 
that have come to them; and, second, and at the 
same time, a warning against forgetting the abso- 
lute need of life in oneself. No hiding behind 
another's sin can be of the slightest value. The 
clear implication of Jesus' teaching here is, once 
more, that of the necessity of the inward life ; life 
comes only from life ; one is to see to it that the 
seed of life is in himself. Nothing is accomplished 
except one repent, — get a new mind. 
The parable The parable of the barren fig tree (13:6-9), 
barren fig which immediately follows in Luke's presentation, 
tree. is plain warning against fruitlessness, mere harm- 

lessness of life. It is another revelation of Jesus' 
constant sense of the seriousness of life, of the 
earnestness of living. In Martineau's words, 
"The severe prerogatives of an existence half 
divine are ours, to wear away life in unproductive 
harmlessness is innocent no more." The fruitless 
life is not only itself useless, but cumbers ground 
that might nourish a fruitful life. The positive 
note is, thus, found unmistakably in this bit of 
the teaching of Jesus. He can find no satisfac- 
tion in a merely negative righteousness. The life 
must be positively fruitful. 

The lesson of the parable of the chief seats 
(14 : 7-1 1), " When thou art bidden of any man to a 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 79 

marriage feast, sit not down in the chief seat," etc., The 
Jesus himself sums up in the sentence, " For ^^ on 
every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled ; humble. 
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" 
(v. 11). We may be sure there is no exhorta- 
tion here to a shrewd, diplomatic pride that 
poses as humility, in order that it may be ex- 
alted; for nothing is so clear to Jesus as that 
there is no getting the real reward of character 
without character. Jesus speaks, thus, of real 
humility, and of real exaltation. No mere playing 
the part of the humble can secure real exaltation. 

This lesson of the exaltation of the humble is 
also the lesson in Luke's presentation of the par- 
able of the Pharisee and the publican, and the 
lesson there is less liable to perversion than in this 
more external parable of the chief seats at dinner. 
For in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, 
it is unmistakably clear that it is no outward con- 
duct, in any case, that Jesus has in mind, but the 
contrast between self-complacent pride and the 
humility of a genuine penitence. And as certainly 
as Jesus knows that the one spirit shuts out all 
possibility of growth and of reception of good from 
either God or men, so surely, on the other hand, he 
knows that the spirit of penitent humility is the very 
seed of all growth, of all achievement, of all real 
exaltation. The really humble, he insists, shall be 
really exalted. We may be sure that the teaching 
of the two parables is practically identical. The 
truly humble soul, deeply dependent on God and 



the cost. 



1 80 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

open-minded toward men is taking the road of 
steady, inevitable growth in all that is best, is thus 
himself becoming steadily, inevitably larger and 
better ; and hence is really " exalted " whether 
men know it or not. And even the tribute of men 
to real worth is pretty certain to come; for the 
world needs, as it needs nothing else, real worth. 
The true measure, thus, and the true exaltation of 
a man is not sitting in the chief seats, but worthi- 
ness to sit in them. 
Counting The two parables of the rash builder and of 

the rash king (14:28-33), with their exhorta- 
tion to the counting of the cost, and Jesus' 
comment — " So therefore whosoever he be of 
you that renounceth not all that he hath, he 
cannot be my disciple " — express, upon Jesus' 
part, the double conviction that there can be no 
discipleship of the true life that is not willing to 
count the full cost to the end, and that is not will- 
ing to renounce all claims on self. It is, thus, as 
though Jesus here said, Make no mistake as to 
what the demands of the true life mean ; let 
there be no blinding of the eyes to the real mean- 
ing of the call ; be ready for it all. Say with the 
glad abandon of a soldier in a great cause, of 
the undaunted seeker after truth, of the true 
lover, No call that can be made upon me can 
surpass my willingness to give (vv. 28-32). And 
this counting of the cost to the end means the 
renunciation of the selfish self, holding all one's 
powers at the bidding of truth and righteousness, 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE l8l 

like a soldier, like a friend. This devotedness of 
life calls for no mere giving up of things, but the 
giving up of the selfish will, the giving up of the 
selfish self (v. 33). No man can be even a true 
friend, who is not willing to give himself in the 
friendship, and this giving of the self is all that 
gives the highest value to the gift of other things. 

Of the same import is that other saying of The heroic 
Jesus, peculiar to Luke, — " No man, having put cal1 of J esus ' 
his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for 
the kingdom of God." (9:62). All who were to 
follow him in the life of truth and righteousness 
and self-sacrificing love, were to count the cost. 
Real kindness itself demanded that there should 
be no coaxing with sugar plums ; they were to 
understand how serious was the demand that he 
made upon them, how great the struggle to be 
made, how dead in earnest the men who would 
share in it must be. It is a part of Jesus' great 
belief in men that he does not hesitate to make 
these strenuously heroic calls and still expects men 
to heed and answer. There can be no halfway 
measures, he insists, in the moral life. This is 
also a part of his conviction of the inevitable 
unity of the spiritual life that we shall later see 
coming out so clearly in the Sermon on the Mount. 

I cannot help thinking that we have the same Girding 
thought applied by Jesus to himself in the saying, for cnsis * 
"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what 
do I desire, if it is already kindled ? But I have 
a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I 



182 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



No flinch- 
ing from 
exacting 
service. 



Winning 
one's soul 
in patience. 



straightened till it be accomplished ! " (12 : 49-50). 
Jesus clearly sees the stern crisis that awaits him, 
and he already girds himself for it. And to a spirit 
like this he urges every true man. 

Precisely akin is the parable of extra service 
(17 : 7-10). In this, as in any parable, the details 
are not to be pressed. Jesus is using this com- 
parison with a human master and servant to bring 
out the single point which alone is to be insisted 
upon, — that in the disciple of the righteous life 
there must be always patient readiness for the 
most exacting service. The parable, thus, is in- 
tended to suggest the spirit which is required in 
the man who means to live in thoroughgoing 
fashion the ethical life : he must humbly admit 
that, in any case, he is only fulfilling his duty and 
cannot claim to be bringing anything beyond what 
that duty requires (v. 10). 

With this parable of extra service, and its demand, 
for patient readiness for the most exacting call, 
may be coupled the brief sentence, peculiar to 
Luke, in the eschatological discourse, " In your 
patience ye shall win your souls" (21 : 19). For 
this pregnant saying seems to have application 
quite beyond the crisis days of the destruction of 
Jerusalem, and to suggest the vigilant and stead- 
fast endurance unto the end that must mark all 
those who are to be accounted worthy disciples of 
the truth. 

In the two parables in chapter 16, Jesus con- 
tinues in the line of his general purpose of the 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 83 

training of the Twelve (cf. 16: 1), to bring them Teaching 
into his own spirit and thought, and to guard them ^j™ ng 
against the insidious, ever present, and ever cor- 
rupting Pharisaic spirit. In these two parables 
Jesus centers his teaching on the point of the 
Pharisaic love of money (vv. 14, 10, 11, 19). For 
Jesus thinks of the spirit of avarice and covetous- 
ness as eating into all the rest of life, if allowed 
to take its course. 1 The most of Luke's chapter 16, 
therefore, might be regarded as warning against 
the Pharisaic love of money, — an attitude which 
ignores the law of consequences, or, as teaching 
concerning the right use of money. All through 
this central section of the teaching of Jesus as 
given in Luke, is to be noted the self -evidence of 
the teaching of Jesus, as tracing out the inevitable 
inner consequences of the moral and spiritual laws 
of men's inner natures. 

The parable of the unrighteous steward (16 : 1- The parable 
13) might be called the true use of riches, or, the °^£eouT 
need of foresight in the spiritual life. The parable steward. 
has been the occasion of what Plummer rightly calls 
an " enormous and unrewarding literature." This 
parable is preeminently a case where the interpre- 
tation must be held to the one main point of the 
parable. If this point had been kept in mind, the 
literature upon it would have been less enormous 
and more rewarding. It is not pretended that the 
steward's procedure was right ; he is called " un- 
righteous." The single point of approval is of his 

1 Cf. parable of the rich fool. 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The direct 
teaching of 
the parable. 

The need 
of foresight 
in the moral 
life. 



I84 



wise foresight in providing, through his prese7it 
opportunity, for the futicre. Jesus, in his comments 
on the parable (if we may trust the position given 
by the Evangelist to the remarks following), seems 
to have taken unusual pains to prevent a misuse 
of the parable, by a succession of clear points in 
verses 8-13. (v. 13, found also in Matthew, seems 
most likely to have been brought in here by the 
Evangelist as logically akin to the other comments.) 
It is perhaps not unlikely that some such actual 
recent case of a steward may have come under 
Jesus' observation, and led him to use it to urge — 
what must have constantly oppressed him (cf. 14 : 
15-24) — the contrasted singular lack of foresight 
shown by men in their moral and spiritual life 
(v. 8); especially in the possible use of money 
(v. 9). The more clear-sighted and loving Christ 
was, the more must this stubborn, heart-breaking 
folly of men in the carelessness of their highest 
interests have oppressed him. He might well 
concentrate the whole force of one parable on the 
unspeakable folly of sin, rather than on its sinful- 
ness ; for words cannot adequately characterize 
that folly. 

The direct teaching of the parable and of the 
comments subjoined by Luke particularly concern 
our time, and may be thus indicated : 

(1) The 8th verse emphasizes particularly jthe 
lack and need of foresight in the moral and spiritual 
life, in which so generally there is no forecasting of 
the future or of the certain consequences of one's 






THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 85 

action; no such prudent foresight as men con- 
stantly show in material affairs. Jesus is here 
protesting against a moral and spiritual shiftless- 
ness, a spiritual living from hand to mouth ; against 
the reckless jeopardizing of all that is most valu- 
able in life for the gratification of present desire ; 
against dooming oneself to endless regret, staking 
without foresight reputation, not only, but charac- 
ter, one's own happiness and life opportunity, and 
the happiness and honor of children, kindred, and 
friends as well. The questions suggested by this 
brief comment in the 8th verse are such as these : 
Are you providing for any certain growth in char- 
acter and faith, — carefully planning far ahead 
for a sure development of your highest life ? have 
you taken your bearings and seen the inevitable 
direction and trend of your present choices, your 
present tastes and enjoyments, your present habits 
of thought and life ? are you thinking what you 
are coming to ? are you preparing for certain fruit 
in maturity, for an old age that shall not be filled 
with vain regret and repining ? are you investing 
in permanent values that will not decline, but 
rather continually grow in value ? 

(2) Jesus applies the principle especially to Making 
pointing out how royally even money can be used j 31011 ^ £ 
in providing for one's future best self and service, 
in the rich store of friendships for all the future 
(v. 9). The exhortation here is to use your money 
(see the Revised Version) in such a way, in such 
friendly, loving service of men, that you shall be 



1 86 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Training 
for greater 
trusts. 



From trust 
of the 
outer to 
trust of the 
inner. 



The 

necessary 
unity of life. 



making great investments of love and service, that 
are eternal, and the sure fruit of which shall be 
yours in all the future. We cannot carry our 
money, or the things which it can buy, with us 
through death into another life, but we can carry 
the results of its loving ministering use in eternal 
friendships. 

(3) Jesus further suggests that in the use of 
one's money one is being tested and trained in 
that which is comparatively " little," for trusts in 
matters far more important, for that which is 
"much." If you cannot be trusted to use un- 
selfishly money, — "a comparatively low form of 
power," 1 — how can you be trusted with far greater 
and richer powers, — power of prayer, power of 
deep moral and spiritual influence and leadership, 
— " the true riches " ? (vv. 10, 11). 

(4) Again, if you cannot be trusted to use unself- 
ishly money and material possessions — that which 
can never be in any full sense one's own — how 
can you be trusted with that which would be pe- 
culiarly and absolutely "your own," — greatly de- 
veloped inner capacities, intellectual, moral, and 
spiritual powers ? (v. 12). 

(5) Once more, it is urged in close connection 
with the last thought, that one cannot serve God 
and mammon. The law is an inevitable one, 
growing out of the certain unity of the spiritual 
life (v. 13). This principle suggests that if you 

1 Bosworth, Studies in the Teaching of Jesus and His Apostles, 
P- *77- 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 87 

are not using your money for service, if you are 
not subordinating all lesser goods to the great 
ends of the Kingdom, then you are really making 
money your god ; you cannot serve God and con- 
tinue in selfishness. On the other hand, the true 
service of God in the loving, ministering life de- 
livers from bondage to mammon and selfishness ; 
they cannot go together. Gladstone's comment 
on the lust for gold in times of war may be taken 
as an illustration of the fearful power of the greed 
of money in uprooting all ideals ; and modern life 
is full of similar illustrations. 

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (16 : 19- The parable 
31) might have as its secondary title, the inevitable andlTzarus. 
consequences in another life of the selfish use of 
money, and, upon the ethical side, it may be taken 
as illustrating the lessons of the preceding parable. 1 

The peculiar teaching in Luke is represented, of Summary 
course, mainly in the peculiar parables. The par- °£ J^* # es 
ables of grace y as we have called them, set forth a 
sympathetic, forgiving love (the two debtors), an 
active, ministering love that is willing to put itself 
out (the Good Samaritan), and a love that cares, 
that longs, that seeks, that grieves over loss and 
rejoices over finding (the parables of the lost coin 
and the lost son). 

The parables of warning set forth the folly of Summary 
heaping up things instead of enlarging one's life °" ^rnhlg! 
(the rich fool), the necessity of vigilant watchful- 
ness (the watchful servants), the condemnation of 

1 Cf. Dods, The Parables of Our Lord, Second Series, pp. 167 ff. 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Comparison 
with doubly 
attested 
sayings. 



fruitlessness (the barren fig tree), the humiliation 
of the proud and the exaltation of the humble (the 
chief seats, and the Pharisee and the publican), 
the necessity of counting the cost of attainment 
in character (the rash builder and the rash king), 
the folly of the lack of foresight in the spiritual 
life, especially in the use of money, and the law of 
consequences in the selfish use of money (the un- 
righteous steward, and Dives and Lazarus), and 
the demand for patient readiness for exacting serv- 
ice (the parable of extra service). 

When one compares the teaching in these sec- 
tions peculiar to Luke with the ethical notes brought 
out in "the laws of life" set forth in the doubly 
attested sayings, he cannot fail to see the manifest 
kinship of this teaching peculiar to Luke, and find 
the same great ethical emphases recurring. The 
laws of life set forth in those sayings, we saw, 
gathered about the moral end, the moral evidence, 
and the moral means. And those laws meant as 
to the end or goal of life that we could build con- 
fidently on faith in the moral trend of the uni- 
verse, on love at the very heart of the world, and 
therefore on faith that love is life. The law as to 
moral evidence meant that one was to be abso- 
lutely true to his inner sense of obligation, to his 
own best vision.. And as to moral means, these 
laws meant for oneself that one was not to forget 
the unity of his nature and the absolute necessity 
of a genuine inner life of his own, and to this end 
was to be dead in earnest, remembering the law of 



THE TEACHING PECULIAR TO LUKE 1 89 

habit and the law of efficiency in seeking his one 
goal, — the reign of an unselfish love in his own 
life. And that in relations to others it meant 
equal earnestness of life, the recognition of the 
law of the contagion of the good, of the necessity 
of witness in the sharing of the good, of reverence 
for the person, and of priority by service, in the 
fulfilment of a self -giving love. 

Every one of these notes, it may fairly be said, All these 
is to be found in this peculiar teaching in Luke, ^ > ^j^ und 
and confirmed and extended. Nowhere quite so 
perfectly, in the first place, is the ground laid for 
faith in the love of God, in love at the heart of the 
world, as in the story of Simon and the woman 
and the parable of the two debtors, the parable of 
the Good Samaritan, the parable of the lost coin, 
and above all, the parable of the lost son. No- 
where more surely is love revealed as life itself. 
And in these all, as well as in the parables of 
warning, there is in marked degree that direct 
inner appeal upon which Jesus everywhere relied 
as the sole moral evidence needed. The parables 
of warning all illustrate the thoroughgoing ear- 
nestness of Jesus' ethical conception and demand, 
and the need of vigilant watchfulness. And the 
other demands upon one's own life are practically 
all reflected, also, in these parables of warning. 

Judged by the criterion of the doubly attested Conclusion, 
sayings, there seems to be no good reason for call- 
ing in question the genuineness of the general 
tenor of the peculiar teaching in Luke, though it 



190 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

is possible that, as we have found in Matthew, the 
eschatological coloring of certain passages may 
have been unconsciously deepened by the inherited 
presuppositions of the writers, and of those from 
whom their traditions were obtained. 






CHAPTER V 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE. 

In turning, in the three chapters following, to 
the Sermon on the Mount, we enter a field in 
which very many have worked, through all the 
Christian centuries. As to critical positions, we 
may properly build directly upon the exhaustive 
study of Professor Votaw, 1 written in the light of 
all the literature upon this Sermon. I may do 
this the more properly because I find myself in so 
general agreement with Professor Votaw's conclu- 
sions, confirmed, as they are at most points, by at 
least a large consensus of scholars, and by two of 
the latest studies in this field. 2 

In the first place, then, it may be said that " it Genuine- 
is the prevailing opinion among New Testament ^^ the 
scholars that in Matthew 5-7 we have an account here. 
of a discourse actually delivered by Jesus, the 
theme and substance of which are here preserved." 3 
Harnack believes that 58 out of the 97 verses in 
Matthew's account of the Sermon were found in 
Q, and thinks that it may be said with certainty 

1 H. D. B., extra volume. 

2 Allen, International Critical Commentary ', Matthew ; Harnack, 
The Sayings of Jesus. 

8 H. D.B., extra volume, p. 1. 

191 



192 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

" that even in Q, large portions of the Sermon on 
the Mount occurred together." 1 And of those 
passages of the Sermon on the Mount which stood 
in Q, he says further, " We notice scarcely any- 
thing which might not pass as primary tradition." 2 
Of all this material in Q he says still more emphati- 
cally, " Judged in detail and as a whole, all that is 
presented as teaching of our Lord in the Sermon 
on the Mount bears the stamp of unalloyed genu- 
ineness. 3 
Passages Doubtless some elements are brought into Mat- 

oricrinai C thew's version of the Sermon "which did not form 
discourse. a part of the original discourse." And this 
changed connection may, at certain points, affect 
the impression made by the passage. 4 There is 
no reason, however, to question even these sayings 
as genuine sayings of Jesus, and they are there- 
fore available for our purpose, whether they were 
parts of the original discourse or not. In Votaw's 
language, " The added matter is just as valuable 
and trustworthy as the nucleus matter, being 
equally the authentic utterances of Jesus." 5 

1 The Sayings of Jesus, p. 74. 

2 Op. cit., p. 200. 3 Op. cit., p. 209. 

4 The passages concerning which there has been most doubt as 
to whether they form a part cf the original Sermon are 5 : 25, 26, 
31,32; 6:7-15; 7:6,7-11,22-23. 

5 Op. cit., p. 2. The main caution to be observed as to Matthew's 
version of the Sermon on the Mount is to be seen in Allen's remark : 
" It is clear that the editor [of our gospel of Matthew] regarded 
the Mosaic law as still binding in all its details on Christian men. 
Now it is probable that we must make allowance here for some 
overemphasis due to local and national prejudice, which inter- 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE 1 93 

It may be further regarded as practically settled Matthew's 
for our study of the Sermon on the Mount that vers f ion , 

J preferred. 

Matthew and Luke give " essentially one dis- 
course. . . . This is the almost unanimous opin- 
ion of scholars." 1 Some, at least, of the reasons 
for Luke's omissions may be reasonably dis- 
puted Christ's sayings in the direction which the history of the 
Jewish people seemed to warrant, and which took effect in the 
selection, and arrangement, and interpretation of such of his sayings 
as lent themselves to the impression which it was desired to pro- 
duce." Illustrations of this tendency in the Sermon on the Mount 
he finds in 5 : 18-19, — " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass 
away from the law," etc., and in 5 : 32, in the addition of the phrase 
" saving for the cause of fornication " (art. " Matthew," D. C. G., 
vol. II, p. 148). Cf. 5: 18-19. Allen says, "It is quite probable 
that verses 18 and 19 are genuine sayings of Christ spoken on some 
occasion when their meaning could not be mistaken, as a paradoxi- 
cal expression of the permanent value of the moral elements in the 
Old Testament. But as they now stand they hopelessly confuse the 
plain tenor of the Sermon." (Oj>. cit., p. 149.) To similar import 
Votaw says as to the relation of Jesus to the Old Testament law, 
that in verse 17 — "Think not that I came to destroy the law or 
the prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfil " — " Jesus could 
only have meant that he came to fulfil the law and the prophets 
by first perfecting them and then accomplishing them. This is now 
the generally accepted interpretation." But as to verses 18 and 19 
Votaw adds, " An increasing number of scholars have come to ques- 
tion the precise authenticity of the utterances as they stand reported 
in Matthew 5 : 18-19. . . . The two verses seem to have a real nucleus 
of something said by Jesus on this occasion. But a certain Jewish- 
Christian coloring they may have received in transmission. . . . 
What these verses now say is inconsistent with Jesus' other teaching 
and with his practice regarding the Old Testament law " (H. D. B., 
extra volume, pp. 24, 25). With the exception of these two verses, 
in their literal interpretation, there is perhaps nothing else in the 
entire Sermon in Matthew that need be called in question as 
genuine sayings of Jesus. 1 Votaw, op. cit,, p. 3. 

o 



194 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

cerned. 1 Matthew's version is preferred and fol- 
lowed in our study here, because, in Votaw's lan- 
guage, he " presents a much more complete account 
of the Sermon," and "in wording a like ver- 
dict of superior excellence falls to the Gospel of 
Matthew. . . . There are many indications that 
Matthew gives the better record. . . . There 
would seem, therefore, to be no room for ques- 
tion that, historically considered, the Sermon as 
given by Matthew is of much greater authenticity 
than the Sermon of Luke. ... In this prefer- 
ence for the Matthean report of the Sermon, nearly 
all scholars are now agreed." 2 

We may turn, then, with assured conviction, to 
Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount as 
containing in its practical entirety, with the excep- 
tions already noted, genuine teaching of Jesus. 
For our ethical study it is not, in any ordinary 
case, of special importance whether the passages 
originally all occurred in this connection or not. 
The material, however, will be more clearly 
grasped by presenting it, in the first place, in 
an outline of the whole ; and there are presented, 
therefore, here, my own outline, and for compari- 
son, the very suggestive outline given in Professor 
Votaw's article. 3 

1 Cf. Votaw, cp. dt.,^. 7; Adeney, art. " Sermon on the Mount," 
D. C. G., vol. II, p. 609. 

2 Votaw, op. cit., pp. 7, 8, 9, 10. This judgment of Votaw is 
confirmed by Harnack's study of Matthew and Luke's treatment of 
Q, in his The Sayings of Jesus, pp. xii, 37. 

3 Cf. also Bacon, The Sermon on the Mount, pp. 85 ff.; Gore, 
The Sermon on the Mount, pp. xi-xii. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE" 1 95 

OUTLINE OF THE SERMON 

Matthew 5 : 3-7 : 27 

The Principles of the Kingdom set forth in Contrast 
with the Spirit of the Times. 

I. The subjects of the Kingdom. 5 : 3-16. 

A. Their character, the source of their blessedness. 

5 : 3-12. 

B. The hope of the world. 5 : 13-16. 

II. The righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven. 5 : 17-7 : 27. 

A. Inward righteousness. The largest fulfillment of the 

law as contrasted with the practice and interpreta- 
tion of the Pharisees. 5:17-48. 
Introduction. The theme, vv. 17-20. 

1. Not only no killing, but no spirit of hatred, vv. 

21-26. 

2. Not only no adultery, but no impurity of thought. 

vv. 27-32. 

3. Replacing oaths by simple truthfulness, vv. 33-37. 

4. Not only no retaliation, but service outrunning 

selfish demands, vv. 38-42. 

5. Universal love like God's. Summary conclusion. 

vv. 43-48. 

B. Righteousness unto the Father, in the inward, filial 

spirit, as contrasted with Pharisaic righteousness 
before men. ch. 6. 

1. Secret alms, as unto the Father, vv. 2-4. 

2. Secret prayer, as unto the Father, vv. 5-15. 

3. Secret fasting, as unto the Father, vv. 16-18. 

4. Heavenly treasure in single-hearted and trustful 

service of God. Summary conclusion, vv. 19-34. 

C. The righteousness of the sacred reverence for the per- 

son. 7 : 1-14. 
1. Judging oneself, not irreverent judging of others, 
vv. 1-5. 



196 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



2. Reverence for one's own personality, v. 6. 

3. Reverent trust in the Father's reverent love. vv. 

7-i 1. 

4. The all-embracing law of love. Reverencing others 

as yourself, v. 12. 1 

5. The consequent narrow entrance to the Kingdom. 

vv. 13-14. 
Summary conclusion. The true and false subjects 
contrasted. " By their fruits." 7 : 15-27. 

PROFESSOR VOTAW'S OUTLINE 



Jesus' 
discoveries 
in the 
Sermon. 



Theme : The Ideal Life : its Characteristics, Mission, 

AND OUTWORKINGS, AND THE DUTY OF ATTAINING It. 

A. The ideal life described. Matt. 5 : 1-16. Luke 6 : 20-26. 

a. Its characteristics. Matt. 5 : 1-12. Luke 6: 20-26. 

b. Its mission. Matt. 5 : 13-16. 

B. Its relation to the earlier Hebrew ideal. Matt. 5 : 17-20. 

C. The outworkings of the ideal life. Matt. 5:21-7: 12. 

Luke 6 : 27-42. 

a. In deeds and motives. Matt. 5:21-48. Luke 

6 : 27-30, 32-36. 

b. In real religious worship. Matt. 6 : 1-18. 

c. In trust and self-devotion. Matt. 6 : 19-34. 

d. In treatment of others. Matt. 7 : 1-12. Luke 

6:31,37-42. 

D. The duty of living the ideal life. Matt. 7: 13-27. Luke 

6 : 43-49. 

Side by side with these outlines of the entire 
thought of the Sermon on the Mount may well 
be put what may be called the spiritual discover- 
ies of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, those 
main contentions of the teaching here considered, 

1 Cf. Votaw, op. cit., p. 42 : " Let each man respect the individ- 
uality and observe the rights of every other man." 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE 1 97 

which, while often not absolutely originating with 
him, yet are here carried out in a way nowhere 
else to be found. For, as previously intimated, 
the originality of Jesus does not consist in the 
fact that no one else has said anything that he 
says, but that he discerns with such unerring cer- 
tainty what is truly significant, and sifts it out from 
the less significant, giving it its due prominence 
and carrying the principle through to the end, 
consistently and thoroughly. So Votaw says, 
" Jesus' originality — and the term is not mis- 
applied — consisted in his divine ability to sepa- 
rate the true from the false, the permanent from 
the transient, the perfect from the imperfect ; and 
then to carry forward the whole circle of ideas and 
practices to their ideal expression." 1 

The rabbinical parallels to isolated utterances do The 
not gainsay this marked quality of originality in [Jf 1 ?"^ 
Jesus ; for, in Wellhausen's words, " The originality 
of Jesus consists in this, that he had the feeling for 
what was true and eternal amid a chaotic mass of 
rubbish, and that he enunciated it with the greatest 
emphasis." 2 

1 Op. city p. 34. 

2 Quoted by Stewart, art. " Originality," D. C. G., vol. II, p. 290. 
Cf. J. E. Carpenter, The First Three Gospels, pp. 316, 321, 322, 328; 
Harnack, What is Christianity ? , pp. 63 ff., 68, 70, 71 ff.; Lotze, The 
Microcosmus, vol. II, pp. 470 ff.; Wundt, The Facts of the Moral 
Life, p. 291 ; Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, 
p. 118; Gardner, Exploratio Evangelica, p. 178; Wendt, The 
Teaching of Jesus, vol. I, pp. 332, 337, 339, 350; Jiilicher, Paulus 
und Jesus ; McGiff ert, " Was Jesus or Paul the Founder of Chris- 
tianity? " American Journal of Theology, January, 1909, pp. 18-20. 



I98 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

Points of For myself, I should say that the question of 

ongmaity. ^ Q originality of the teaching of Jesus is not prop- 
erly the question of the origin of a phrase. It need 
not surprise us, as Lotze has suggested, to find con- 
siderable similarity in ways of putting the same 
moral precepts. Nor is there any need that one 
should lack the fullest appreciation of all the ele- 
ments of value in non-Christian systems. Jesus' 
great originality lies not in the fact that there 
are no anticipations in any degree of even those 
elements of his teaching that are essentially pe- 
culiar, but rather in his marvelous supremacy when 
brought into comparison with all other moral and 
religious teachers ; in the wonderful unity of life 
and teaching and influence ; in his deep insight 
into the very heart of all life, into the secret of all 
living. One finds in him no elaborate deductions, 
no painstakingly preserved system, but rather an 
insight so complete as to allow even scattered 
maxims to be brought into a perfect unity, with- 
out contradictions and without inconsistencies. 

In particular, to put the matter in the briefest 
compass, I should say: — 

(1) That Jesus' teaching, in a peculiar degree, 
gives unity to the spiritual life in its conception 
of love as fulfilling all righteousness. And the 
obligation of universal love is peculiarly its con- 
tribution to the ethical thought of the world. 

(2) As Lotze has suggested, 1 it really gives 
much deeper meaning to the things in which it 

1 Op. cit. } vol. II, pp. 470-472. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE 1 99 

seems to agree with other religions. The moral 
law becomes the will of the personal Father. 

(3) Practically, it may be said to add a whole 
new realm of morality — that of the so-called pas- 
sive virtues of the Beatitudes. 

(4) It brings into morality an absolutely new 
spirit — the spirit of the free and joyful obedience 
of a child to the Father. 

(5) It may be added, as Romanes suggests, that 
the teaching of Jesus is equally remarkable for 
what it does not contain. He speaks, therefore, of 
"the absence from the biography of Christ of any 
doctrines which the subsequent growth of human 
knowledge — whether in natural science, ethics, 
political economy, or elsewhere — has had to dis- 
count. This negative argument is really almost as 
strong as is the positive one from what Christ did 
teach." 

(6) But the great and unique contribution which, 
above all else, Jesus makes to ethics and religion is 
himself. No personality can for an instant be 
placed beside his as worthy of comparison with 
him; and therein lies the great, peculiar, unique 
contribution of Jesus to the moral and religious 
life. 

(7) In close connection with this it is to be said 
that the world's experience with Christianity has 
amply proven, also, Jesus' peculiar power to make 
his moral teaching effective in the lives of men. 
This power of moral energizing, Lecky, for ex- 
ample, explicitly recognizes, and it lies on the face 



200 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The spiritual 
discoveries 
of Jesus in 
the Sermon 
on the 
Mount. 



of the historical record. In Fairbairn's words, 
" Love to him is the only thing in the region of 
moral motive that can be described as an imperish- 
able yet convertible force, whose changes of form 
never mean decrease of energy or loss of power." 1 

And it is this kind of originality which justifies 
us in speaking here of the spiritual discoveries of 
Jesus, as contained in the Sermon on the Mount. 2 

These spiritual discoveries of Jesus may be thus 
phrased : 3 — 

i. The nature of true righteousness. 

(i) The indissoluble unity of the ethical and religious life ; 
the proof of relation to God is fruit in life. 5 : 3-12, 
20, 23-24, 45, 48 ; 6:1,2; 7:12, 20-27. 

(2) The necessity of mental and spiritual independence — 

the authority of self-evident truth. " But I say," 
etc. 5 : 3-12, 17, 22, 28, 34, 39, 44; 6: 1, 7, 9-13, 
22-24, 2 5; 7 : I2 , 21-23, 24-27, cf. 29. 

(3) The true righteousness is inner always. 5 : 17-48. 

(4) Love is the sum of righteousness — sharing God's 

1 See Fairbairn's whole strong summary of the verdict of history 
on Christ, in his The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, pp. 378- 
382. 

2 For our detailed ethical study, however, we may omit the 
sections distinctly religious (Matt. 6:5-21, 25-34; 7:7-11), as 
well as three brief passages covered in previous discussions (5 : 13, 
29-30> 31-32). 

3 Cf. the summary of Jesus' services to morality in The Creed of 
Christ, pp. 125 ff.; Bacon, The Sermon on the Mount ; Wendt, The 
Teaching of 'fesus, vol. II, pp. 388 ff.; Anthony, "The Ethical Prin- 
ciples of Jesus," Biblical World, July, 1909; Swete, Studies in the 
Teaching of Our Lord, pp. 184-185; Schmiedel, fesus in Modern 
Criticism, pp. 90-91; Brooks, The Influence of fesus, pp. 28 ff.; 
Burton, "Jesus as a Thinker," Biblical World, October, 1897, pp. 
245 ff.; Ecce Homo, pp. 195 ff. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE 201 

own life. Do always and only what love requires. 
5 : 44-48, 39-42. 
(5) A deep reverence for the priceless value and sacred- 
ness of the person is fundamental. 7:1-14. Cf. 
5 : 8, 22, 28, 32, 45. 1 

2. Inferences from the Beatitudes. 

(1) Christ's deep optimism. Happiness is possible to 

men even with suffering. 5 : 3-12. 

(2) The discovery of a whole new division of happiness, 

the happiness of a deep and abiding faith and hope 
and love. 5 : 3-12. 

(3) The prime conditions of happiness lie in character, 

and can be definitely pointed out — the qualities of ' 
the Beatitudes. 5 : 3-12. 

(4) The discovery of a new continent of virtues, as well, 

hardly recognized by the ancient world — the mis- 
called "passive" virtues. 5: 3-12. 2 

(5) These are made the fundamental virtues — the facets 

of the one jewel of love. 5 : 3-12. 3 

(6) Upon just these, summed up in love, society must be 

built. 5 : 13-16. 4 

3. Motives to living. 

(1) The inevitable unity of a man's inner life; the de- 

mand for thoroughgoing consistency of life. 5:18, 
19, 22, 26, 28, 29, 30, 37, 48 ; 6 : 4, 6, 22-24 5 7 = 5> 
12, 13, 14. 

(2) At the heart of the world and life is a God, who is a 

loving Father of all. 5 : 45, 48. 6 

1 Cf. Lotze, Practical Philosophy, pp. 68, 74, 78 ff.; T.B. Strong, 
Christian Ethics, pp. 129-134; Ecce Homo, pp. 155 ff., 176, 266- 
269, 345; Murray, Handbook of Christian Ethics, pp. 91 ff. 

2 Cf. Bushnell, Sermons for the A r ew Life, pp. 399 ff. 

3 Cf. King, The Laws of Friendship, ch. XV. 4 Cf. Rauschen- 
busch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, pp. 67 ff. 

5 Cf. Bousset, fesus, p. 114: "No shallow optimism;" Gladden, 
The Church and Modern Life, pp. 15, 48, 162 ff.; Harnack, What 
is Christianity ?, pp. 63 ff.; Brooks, The Lnfluence of fesus, pp. 12, 
15, 20. 



202 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Summary 
on these 
main con- 
tentions. 



(3) If God is Father, and love is life, ever} 7 man is a 

brother, and so to be treated. 5 : 22-24, 37: 39~42 5 

44-47- 

(4) The law of God is a part of the revelation of the love 

of God. Not avoidance of the law, but completest 
fulfillment, is the way to life. 1 The true extension 
of the law is not outer and mechanical, but in- 
ner and ideal. Ctr. danger from hedge of law. 
5:17-48. 
4. The involved conception of the religious life. 

(1) The blessing of God is not an external reward to be 

earned by hateful tasks, but the inner, inevitable 
joy of the trustful and obedient spirit. Love is its 
own reward, since love itself is life, and life enlarges 
as one gives himself more fully and in more and 
larger relations. 5 : 17-48 ; 6 : 1-34 ; 7 : 1-27. 

(2) If God is Father, the religious life inevitably takes on 

a new spirit of desiring simply the true filial rela- 
tion to him (cf. 5 : 45) — a fact of the inner life 
with its inner reward (6: 1, 4, 6, 18), not possibly 
a show before men. Every religious act must there- 
fore be a genuine desire for a drawing near to God, 
not a showing off before men which vitiates it all. 
6:1-18. 

(3) If God is Father, the religious life becomes one of 

natural, single-hearted, complete trust m the Father. 
The silent moral and spiritual forces may be abso- 
lutely trusted. 6 : 19-34 ; 7 : 7-1 1. 

This statement of the main contentions of Jesus 
in the Sermon on the Mount brings out distinctly 
a number of the emphases already noted in other 
parts of the teaching of Jesus : the ethical concep- 
tion of religion, the necessity of mental and spirit- 
ual independence, the inevitable inwardness of the 

1 Cf. Drummond, The Ideal Life, p. 275. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AS A WHOLE 203 

moral life, the demand for reverence for the person, 
and the summary of the true life in love. It is not 
necessary to return to these points in detail, but 
the clearness and strength with which they are here 
set forth should be noted. These principles, in- 
deed, permeate the entire Sermon, as will be seen 
in the special discussions to follow. 

Passing over the conception of the religious life 
here involved, our discussion then naturally turns 
to a more detailed study, in the next chapter, of 
the Beatitudes as giving the basic qualities of life, 
and in chapter VII to a study of the great motives 
of Jesus as set forth in the entire Sermon. 



CHAPTER VI 

JESUS' CONCEPTION OF THE BASIC QUALITIES 
OF LIFE : A STUDY OF THE BEATITUDES. 



Definition 
of basic 
qualities. 



The answer 
in the 
Beatitudes. 



Character. 



Happiness. 



What are the basic qualities in life ? That is, 
what are the qualities essential to character, to hap- 
piness, and to influence ? The question is absolutely- 
vital. Has a precise and commanding answer ever 
been given ? 

The Beatitudes of Jesus, I suppose, are intended 
to give just such an answer. In them, the supreme 
artist in living, facing the whole problem of life for 
all men, distinctly challenges the ruling conceptions 
of his time, and definitely points out the qualities of 
character that must mark the citizen of the coming 
civilization of brotherly men ; and declares that 
these qualities are at the same time the supreme 
conditions of happiness, and that they contain as 
well the secret of all powerful influence for good. 

Oppressed with the false standards as well as 
with the false acts of men, he has begun his 
preaching with the charge : Repent, get a new 
mind. That new mind and character he defines 
in the Beatitudes. 

The man who speaks is no enemy of life or of 
men. Rather rejoicing in life himself, and con- 
scious of the power to bring the largest life to 

204 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 205 

others, he has looked out on the multitudes with 
compassion, as sheep having no shepherd, eager for 
happiness, but seeking it in desert places, utterly 
mistaking its real conditions. Those real condi- 
tions of happiness, he points out in the Beatitudes. 

Clearly conscious, also, of his call to revolution- influence. 
ize the selfish civilization of the world, he seeks 
those men, who shall be the salt to preserve the 
world sound, the light to enlighten its darkness, 
the quickening yeast to permeate its every ele- 
ment, the living seed of the great organic kingdom 
that is to come. And he is certain that only men 
marked by the qualities of the Beatitudes can so 
count in the world. 

Elsewhere he shows that he believes that the Love as 
whole law of righteousness can be summed up in sum ° a ' 
love — to God and to men. Moreover, he has such 
faith in men, that he is certain that no abiding 
happiness can come to the unloving. And he also 
definitely sets before himself as the world-goal that 
civilization in which men shall recognize themselves 
as children of God and as brothers one of another 
— the civilization of the loving life. One single 
need and one remedy for the life of the world — to 
live the life of love ! Here are character, happi- 
ness, influence. So simply, so deeply, he sees the 
problem. 

But here in the Beatitudes, as though still The eie- 
further to simplify the problem, he attempts to j^ ts of 
analyze into its elements this all-inclusive virtue 
of love, to give its different aspects — the facets of 



206 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Jesus' map 
of life. 



The 

Beatitudes 
as giving 
the basic 
qualities. 



this one priceless jewel. Or, perhaps rather, he 
wishes to indicate the steps of progress in the lov- 
ing life, from its beginning in open-minded humil- 
ity to its climax in a life of courageous self-sacrifice. 
And he plainly aims, besides, to show just how 
these constituent qualities bless the life into which 
they come. And, once more, having so defined the 
meaning of the loving life, and shown it to be the 
unfailing source of true happiness, he goes on to 
say that men characterized by just these qualities 
are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the 
most powerful and beneficent influences in the on- 
going life of men. 

The Beatitudes, then, are Jesus' " map of life." 
Positive, simple, inner, deep, they cut quite under 
the decalogue of the Old Testament, and remain, 
even in the New Testament, the most perfect ex- 
pression, in words, of " the life that is life indeed " 
— the life that is really worth while. And no man 
who wishes to be what he ought, to enjoy what he 
may, to count as he can, may wisely ignore them. 

In other words, the clearest seer of the spiritual 
life that the world has ever known, definitely sets 
forth in the Beatitudes what he regards as the 
really basic qualities of life, and says straightly : 
Just here is the secret of character, of happiness, 
of influence. Here, then, are our chart and our 
sailing orders. 1 



1 As we take up the Beatitudes in detail, we may well bear in 
mind Tholuck's wise suggestion : " There can be no doubt — and 
this should be carefully noted — that all the ideas which meet us 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 20/ 

I. Character. And, first, here are the elements 
of true character. 

(i) The qtialities involved. Just what are these 
qualities which Jesus here singles out as funda- 
mental in life ? 

The quality, " poor in spirit," recalls the current The 
use of the term " poor " as applied to " the party SJ^fiSt^ 
of the faithful and God-fearing Israelites." x It Beatitude, 
describes " the man who has a deep sense of his 
spiritual deficiency and dependence upon God." 2 
Ethically characterized, the poor in spirit are the 
humble, the teachable, the open-minded, and in- 
clude as well the trustful. They are to be con- 
trasted with those who are filled with pride, conceit, 
self-satisfaction, and self-will. Nor is the humble 
spirit, in Jesus' view, one of false self -depreciation. 
Rather it is a fundamental conviction of Jesus', 
permeating all his teaching, that every man is to 
know the worth of his own being and calling as a 
child of God, and to rejoice in it ; but he also 
knows that to each of his brethren, too, belong his 
unique personality and calling. Rejoicing, then, 
in his own mission and message, he must recognize 
equally those of others, and be glad in the larger 
life and service that are open to him through them. 

here in the Sermon on the Mount, those of the Kingdom of God, 
the righteousness of that Kingdom, the poor in spirit, the pure in 
heart, seeing God, etc., were no new ideas, but well-known ones, 
of which Christ only revealed the deepest meaning." (Quoted by 
Votaw, op. cit., p. 17.) 

1 See Driver, art. "Poor," H. D. B., p. 20. 

2 Votaw, op. cit., p. 1 7. 



208 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The 

quality of 
the second 
Beatitude. 



The 

quality of 
the third 
Beatitude. 



So seeing, he cannot "think of himself more highly 
than he ought to think." And, thus, with frank 
self-respect, he is as frankly humble, teachable, 
persistently open-minded toward all others. This 
quality of humble teachableness is fitly placed first 
in this sketch of the ideal life, for it is the first es- 
sential of all growth into better things. It is the 
door of entrance to the kingdom of science, as well 
as to the Kingdom of Heaven. 

The true character must have humility as a chief 
corner-stone. 

if Since all the other Beatitudes touch upon defi- 
nitely moral qualities, it seems clear that, by those 
that mourn, Jesus means those who sorrow for their 
sins, who are conscious of their defects, and lament 
them, who are genuinely repentant. His interest 
is in inner qualities of character that carry with 
them inevitable blessing. 1 They are to be con- 
trasted with those who are without scruple, and 
who feel free to follow every impulse without com- 
punction. Penitence is the negative side of that 
" new mind " that Jesus expects to find in the true 
man. It implies that persistent sensitiveness of 
conscience that is both the condition and the effect 
of steady duty-doing even in little things. 

No progress in character is possible where such 
penitence is lacking. 

The meek are set over against those who are 
perpetually jealous of their rights, and as persist- 

1 Cf. Tholuck, quoted by Votaw, op. cit., p. 19; and Allen, 
International Critical Commentary, St. Matthew. 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 209 

ently claiming everything for themselves, — those 
of brazen assurance. As contrasted with these, the 
meek do not press even their plain rights ; but un- 
der the provocation of the invasion of their rights, 
maintain their self-control, and bear and forbear, 
"enduring all things." Meekness is, thus, self- 
control at its highest power. This is clearly im- 
plied in the three best definitions of meekness I have 
ever seen. Meekness, Thomas says, " is the soul 
in the majesty of self-possession, elevated above 
the irascible, the boisterous, and the revengeful." 
So Bishop Moberly writes, " Divine meekness re- 
quires strength, self-control, tranquil courage, and 
all these in a high degree." And Beecher says : 
" It is the best side of a man under provocation 
maintaining itself in the best mood, and controlling 
all men." " In any given man, meekness is the 
strongest mood in which he can carry himself." 1 

Meekness, then, let us be sure, is no milk and 
water virtue, and still less a superfluous virtue. It 
is a root-virtue, and essential to the strong man. 

To " hunger and thirst after righteousness " — The 
not mere reputation — implies persistent eagerness ^fo^i 
for high character. Hunger and thirst are import- Beatitude, 
unate and imperative ; and this Beatitude requires, 

1 This element of self-control in meekness is clearly brought out 
in Findlay's admirable article, "Meekness," D. C. G., p. 159 : " It is 
the spirit of one who is not easily provoked, but keeps under control 
the natural instinct to assert oneself and to retaliate." Even the 
quality of patient and calm endurance under affliction and persecu- 
tion, which other commentators are inclined here to emphasize, it 
is to be noted, really involves strong self-control. 
P 



210 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The 

quality of 
the fifth 
Beatitude. 



The 

quality of 
the sixth 
Beatitude. 



therefore, the insatiable desire for character itself, 
the unfailing pursuit of the best in conduct and 
inner spirit. This is the positive side of the " new 
mind," and involves especially thoroughgoing hon- 
esty. Its goal is complete integrity of character. 
It is in dead earnest in its fight for character. This 
spirit is the direct opposite of that which has no 
care for character, which harbors sin unchecked, 
which desires only the reward of righteousness, 
not righteousness itself. To be hungry and thirsty 
for real righteousness means that the deepest trend 
of one's being is set toward the righteousness of God. 

Evidently such a spirit is indispensable to the 
highest attainment in character. 

The merciful are the compassionate and sympa- 
thetic. They are set over against the tyrannical, 
the hard, and the intolerant. Mercy involves not 
only pity and courtesy, but positive kindness. It 
implies an understanding of men, and a judgment 
kindly, because intelligent and sympathetic. It is 
far more than any mere outward treatment ; it 
is merciful to the inner person. And such real- 
mercy is no easy accomplishment. One can count 
upon it only from the best — from those who know 
out of their own experience what temptation and 
struggle mean. 

Every human relation calls aloud for such mercy. 

The pure in heart — as the phrase plainly im- 
plies — must have inner purity. 1 Jesus clearly be- 

1 1 cannot doubt that, in harmony with the other Beatitudes, 
Jesus has in mind here a specific quality of the righteous life, not 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 211 

lieves that such purity in heart can belong only to 
those who have a deep reverence for the sacred- 
ness of the person — who are reverent throughout 
and under the severest temptation. And social 
purity is one of the chief forms of such purity in 
heart. No love is a pure love that lacks some 
real reverence — to which the one loved is not 
really sacred. And a pure love becomes, for this 
very reason, the strongest of all human motives to 
self-control. The pure in heart recognize the child 
of God in every soul, and treat him, accordingly, 
not as a thing but as a holy person. 

How absolutely fundamental is this spirit, every 
thoughtful student of moral growth, whether in the 
individual or in the race, well knows. 

simply a general description of that life. While emphasis is laid 
upon its necessary innerness, the Beatitude calls for the specific 
quality of purity, as involving everywhere a deep reverence for the 
person. Without this, only a negative purity, quite unsatisfying to 
Jesus, is achieved. This Beatitude, therefore, seems to me to be 
quite inadequately dealt with by most writers. I have long be- 
lieved that the positive side of purity could not be truly charac- 
terized without bringing into prominence the spirit of reverence 
for the person, as essential to it. I was glad, therefore, to have 
this judgment confirmed by the clear insight of the article of 
Boys-Smith on " Purity," in the Dictionary of Christ and the 
Gospels. Building directly on Jesus' teaching, he says: "To make 
common, i.e., to vulgarize, is the way to make impure : profanity 
is the ruin of purity. A well-spring of living water, fenced about 
by reverence, — that is purity. When reverence is broken through 
. . . then purity is gone. . . . Reverence is the root from which 
purity grows; and never was the essential nature of purity set 
in more vivid contrast with that blind and brutal profanity which 
is its opposite, than in Christ's striking utterance, ' Give not that 
which is holy to the dogs,' " etc., p. 459. 



212 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The 

quality of 
the seventh 
Beatitude. 



The 

quality of 
the eighth 
Beatitude. 



The peacemaker is more than a peace-keeper. 
He belongs to that high order of men who are 
able to be reconcilers of their fellowmen, who 
actively promote peace among men, who enter 
into God's own work of bringing men into unity. 
They are set over against those who stir up strife 
and promote war, whether in large or small ways. 
They have no part in the activity of those of 
whom the Proverbs speak so contemptuously, — 
the whisperer, the meddler, the tale-bearer, the 
busybody, the tattler, and the mischief-maker. 
The peacemaker not only withstands hate, but 
positively promotes the reign of love among men. 

The peacemaker plainly renders to society a 
service of the highest value. 

" They that have been persecuted for righteous- 
ness' sake " include the noble array of all those 
who, for the sake of the promotion of righteous- 
ness and truth among men, have been willing to 
endure hardness, to face the trying experience of 
the pioneer in every realm, to give the one incon- 
testable proof of love that is found in sacrifice and 
suffering. It is no virtue for the lackadaisical, the 
luxurious, and self-indulgent. It sounds the call 
to heroic service, and it challenges all our easy- 
going piety with its uncompromising questions : 
Have you really sacrificed at all ? have you put 
yourself out anywhere ? have you really stood for 
your convictions, for right, and purity, and truth, 
at the risk of some unpopularity ? have you been 
in any sense a prophet ? have you spoken what 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 213 

God gave you ? have there been at least the thou- 
sand little sacrifices of a loving heart, of a con- 
stant thoughtfulness ? 

How poverty-stricken, how swept clean of the 
best that life holds, would that world be in which 
this last Beatitude had no place. 

Plainly these are all basic qualities. Not one 
can be spared in the complete character. 

Looking, now, at the Beatitudes as a whole, and The order 
as a sketch of the highest character, Jesus seems ° f th ?. , 
to have intended to indicate the completeness and 
unity of the character he has sketched by the very 
order of the Beatitudes. For myself, the perfec- 
tion of the grouping and of the order seems, in- 
deed, one of the best evidences of the accuracy of 
the record. 

(2) The Beatitudes as a progress. I think it 
not fanciful to see that the eight Beatitudes fall 
into two groups of four each, of which the first 
group is personal, treating of the Kingdom of 
God in our own hearts ; and the second group, 
social, dealing with the Kingdom in our relation to 
others. Moreover, the eight taken together seem 
to form a definite progress, each quality leading 
up naturally to the one that follows, and each pre- 
supposing and containing in itself, in a way, all 
that have preceded. The Beatitudes as a prog- 
ress and a unity may be thus given : — 

Personal. 

1. A teachable humility, v. 3. 

2. Genuine penitence, v. 4. 



214 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Humility 
and peni- 
tence. 



Self-control 
and per- 
sistent pur- 
suit of 
righteous- 
ness. 



Sympathy 
and rever- 
ence for the 
person. 



3. Self-control at its highest power, v. 5. 

4. A persistent eagerness for the highest character, v. 6. 

Social. 

5. Sympathy with men. v. 7. 

6. Deepest reverence toward men. v. 8. 

7. Promoting love among men. v. 9. 

8. Sacrificing for men. vv. 10-12. 

A teachable humility plainly belongs first. It 
is the first condition of all possible growth. It is 
that spirit of the little child without which one 
cannot enter the kingdom of righteousness at all. 
And such a spirit leads most naturally to peni- 
tence. And a true penitence, on the other hand, 
involves humility. 

So meekness, the self-control of the one who 
maintains himself at his best under provocation, 
requires as its chief aids the humble spirit and 
the penitent spirit. He will best bear with others, 
who best knows his own needs. And, on the 
other hand, this self-control at its highest, as a 
root-virtue of all virtues, prepares the way, there- 
fore, for the whole-souled pursuit of righteous- 
ness, of which the fourth Beatitude speaks. And, 
again, this persistent eagerness for the highest 
character implies humility, and penitence, and self- 
control. 

And all these personal qualities are carried over 
into the different expressions of the love toward 
men which follow. It is exactly the best, we have 
seen, those most eager for high attainment in char- 
acter themselves, who will be most merciful, most 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 215 

sympathetic with men. And, as humility is the 
first condition of personal growth, so intelligent 
sympathy with others is the first condition of the 
true social life, of fine personal relations, and of 
influence with men. The blessing upon the merci- 
ful, therefore, properly begins the group of social 
Beatitudes. And, because the earnestly righteous 
man must be sympathetic with men, especially in 
their struggle for character, he will stand against 
the two great foes of the loving life — lust and 
anger; and in true purity of heart be reverent 
toward men, and promote love among men. That 
reverence for the person, moreover, which is in- 
volved in purity of heart, is the second and the 
greatest condition of all high personal relations, 
and of all true influence, and naturally stands sec- 
ond, therefore, in these basic social qualities. At 
the same time, it demands the highest righteous- 
ness in that relation that lies at the very basis of 
society; and itself presupposes and requires sym- 
pathy with men. 

And, once more, he who reverently sees in each Peace- 
man a child of God must seek to promote peace ma ing " 
and love among men. He can do no less than to 
aim to secure the prevalence of his own spirit of 
reverence, which saps at once all anger and jeal- 
ousy. Any deep and permanent peace-making in- 
volves purity in heart. 

And, finally, he who is in earnest in promoting Sacrificial 
the reign of peace and love among men must be love * 
prepared to sacrifice for men — to face suffering 



2l6 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Summary. 



The world's 
code. 



and persecution. And this sacrificial love includes 
all the qualities that have preceded, and builds 
upon them, and is itself their climax and final 
glorification. We know nothing higher than a 
courageous, suffering, sacrificial love. 

These, then, Jesus seems to say, are the basic 
qualities of character : teachable, penitent, self- 
controlled, genuinely earnest in the pursuit of the 
highest, sympathetic with men, reverent toward 
men, promoting love among men, sacrificing for 
men. 

2. Happiness. And just these same qualities 
Christ believes are the supreme conditions of hap- 
piness as well. Indeed, as the repeated " blessed " 
implies, he seems to have had this thought first of 
all in mind. He faced, as does every man, a code 
of the world, that runs much like this : — 

Happy are the proud, for theirs is this world. 

Happy are the unscrupulous, for they shall 
need no comfort. 

Happy are those who claim everything, for they 
shall possess the earth. 

Happy are those who hold back from no sin, for 
they shall drain pleasure's cup. 

Happy are the tyrants, for they need no 
mercy. 

Happy are the impure, to whose lust no bound 
can be put, for they shall see many harlots. 

Happy are they who can stir anger unhindered, 
whose ambition is unchecked, for they shall be as 
gods. 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 217 

Happy are they who have never sacrificed, for 
theirs is all the world. 

And over against these judgments of the world Jesus' 
Jesus sets his own, in which he deliberately chal- ^world's 
lenges and reverses every statement of this world's code. 
code. And the blessing — the happiness — that 
he promises, in each case grows inevitably out of 
the quality named. And it is just this inevitable 
connection that is here to be considered. 

He promises the highest good — the Kingdom Humility 
of God 2 — to the humble, not to the proud. For no as Q a ™ ndi ~ 
good can be finally withheld from the teachable, happiness. 
since he possesses the prime condition of growth, 
and no limits can be set to his attainment. The 
growing life is the life of continuous youth and of 
continuous joy. The humble is open to the best 
that either God or man can give. Of course, then, 
potentially, the highest good is already his, as 
Jesus says. 

What source of happiness is more fundamental 
than this possibility of endless progress ? And 
how certainly is its great condition this single 
moral quality of teachableness ! 

So, too, Jesus is confident that it is not the un- Penitence 
scrupulous and the conscienceless to whom can a . s a c ° ndl_ 

x tion of 

come any final comfort. To lose sensitiveness of happiness. 
conscience is to lose, at the same time, that sensi- 
tiveness to personal relations which is the inevitable 
condition of all the finest and highest happiness. 

1 Cf. Votaw, op. cit., p. 1 6, upon the blessings of Jesus as not 
merely eschatological. 



2l8 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Meekness 
as a condi- 
tion of 
happiness. 
Reasons. 



It shuts one out inviolably from the best joys of 
the two greatest sources of happiness — work and 
friendship. Jesus knows that men are made on 
too large a plan to be really satisfied with an im- 
penitent life. They are made for personal rela- 
tions, made for love, made for work that is service ; 
and the soul that has no sorrow for its sins against 
love is shut out by flaming swords from any true 
paradise. The penitent alone shall be really com- 
forted — comforted with the only true comfort of 
the assurance of steady progress into that char- 
acter whose lack they mourn. The conscienceless 
man must live the life of a being continually baffled 
of the end for which it was made. 

The penitent spirit, the sensitive conscience, is 
an indispensable condition of the finest joys that 
the life of man affords. 

To the meek — those who in self-control main- 
tain themselves at their best, even under provo- 
cation — Jesus promises that they shall inherit 
the earth. Beginning asa" popular phrase of the 
Hebrew covenant conception," "after the Israel- 
ites had come into possession of Canaan, the 
conception was enlarged, and the phrase became 
figuratively used to designate an anticipated mate- 
rial, moral, and spiritual supremacy of the people of 
God on the earth." 1 Aside then from the religious 
hopes of a future life or new Messianic age, from 
the ethical point of view, there is here the promise, 
I suppose, that the meek shall really get the most 

1 Votaw, op. cit. t p. 19. 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 2ig 

out of life now and here. He commends the 
quality as the one royal road to the best enjoy- 
ment of life, even as it passes. And this, I 
suppose, for several reasons. In the first place, 
because humility and penitence, the implications 
of meekness, and the spirit that refuses to make 
extravagant claims for self, themselves remove the 
chief sources of unrest and discontent; for, as 
Drummond says, "wounded vanity, disappointed 
hopes, unsatisfied selfishness, these are the old 
vulgar universal sources of man's unrest." Now 
these causes the spirit of meekness attacks at the 
root, and therefore tends naturally to give one 
some real opportunity for peace and joy. 

Moreover, the spirit of meekness with its im- 
plied humility, because it carries with it a modest 
estimate of self, escapes the feeling of being con- 
stantly slighted and offended. As it does not feel 
that everything is due to it, so it is content and 
cheerful, where pride and assumption would be 
only miserable. And such a spirit gets far more 
out of life. Reducing our pretensions is good 
counsel for cheerfulness. We may learn to be 
content. 

And, as modest and free from the envious spirit, 
the meek are able also to enter into the joy of 
others, and so to share in a very real sense in all 
joy. They own the world, as only such spirits can. 

The spirit of meekness, too, has a natural effect 
on others also. In the case of those who claim 
everything for themselves, others naturally oppose ; 



220 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Thirst for 
character 
as a condi- 
tion of 
happiness. 



but one gives gladly to the meek. They readily 
secure the good-will of all, and so come easily and 
naturally into the best of life. 

Moreover, as self-control even under provocation, 
meekness has a very real contribution to make to 
the enjoyment of life. He rules all who rules 
himself. He has himself always in hand, and 
therefore loses no opportunity ; he can continually 
sacrifice the lower to the higher, the temporary to 
the permanent, and so find life meaning ever more 
and more to him. The largest inheritance cannot 
help being his. The best things in life are always 
only for the self-controlled. There is no possibil- 
ity of the highest attainment anywhere along any 
line without self-control. 

And, once more, meekness gets the most out of 
life in still another sense. It inevitably deepens 
the inner life of the man himself. Holding one- 
self perpetually at one's highest, in one's strongest 
mood, carries sure results in the self, in a steady 
deepening of the significance of life. Surely the 
meek shall inherit the earth. They get the most 
out of life even now and here. 

Meekness, doubtless, is a fundamental condition 
of happiness. 

Those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, 
Jesus pronounces blessed, because they shall be 
filled, — filled with that for which they hunger, — 
genuine righteousness. They shall share the char- 
acter and so the life of God. Jesus evidently 
counts God's life as the life of highest blessedness 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 221 

as well as of character; and he cannot conceive 
how any one can come, therefore, into the highest 
blessedness without coming at the same time into 
character. The promise here, then, is not merely 
some substitute for righteousness, some makeshift 
for it, some simply treating a man as if he were 
righteous, but by the divine co-working, the mak- 
ing of him righteous. The insatiable thirst for 
character shall be quenched. He who has this 
eager positive desire cannot be satisfied without 
real character. Not what men think him, but what 
he is troubles him. Is it tolerable to one that he 
should be proud, impenitent, contemptuous, cen- 
sorious, without self-control, false, impure, and 
unloving ? Is his deepest ambition the ambition 
for righteousness ? God will not fail him. He 
shall be filled. It is the deadliest of all revelations 
of character, on the other hand, that one does not 
care for the best. And that means that he has 
definitely given up the highest end for which he 
was made ; he has strayed from his orbit ; he is 
fundamentally out of harmony with the aims of 
the universe in which he is ; he is at ceaseless 
war with God's own purpose of love. He has, 
therefore, made any deep and abiding happiness 
impossible. 

The deepest condition of happiness is the eager 
persistent pursuit of character. 

And the merciful shall obtain mercy — of God Mercy as 
and of men. "With what measure ye mete, it a «> ndi ? on 

J ' of happiness 

shall be measured unto you." It is the unjust and Reasons. 



222 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

the unmerciful that provoke retaliation. The very 
bearing of the hard man calls out hardness. He 
does not even know how to make a gracious 
appeal for sympathy. We speak literally of such 
a one when we say, " He does not appeal to me." 
On the other hand, the habitual mood and man- 
ner of the sympathetic win ; they get mercy. He 
who has habitually entered with real sympathy 
into the life of others will not be left alone at the 
end. One may be admired, envied, deferred to, 
feared ; but if he has been unmerciful, his doom is 
coming ; even by men he will be left in the dread- 
ful loneliness of the selfish life. He will seek for 
mercy and not find it. He has cut the bonds that 
bind him to men. He abides alone. Brilliant, 
selfish, hard, scheming men get their reward even 
here. They have made impossible the best gifts 
of friendship — the surest source of happiness. 

And the unmerciful spirit works an even greater 
damage to the inner man. The fundamentally 
unmerciful are scarcely able to understand, to 
believe in, or to receive mercy, even of God. 
" Blessed are the merciful ; for they shall obtain 
mercy " — of men, of God. 

It is a practically universal law : men tend to 
respond in like coin to what you bring — mercy 
with mercy, frankness with frankness, deceit with 
deceit, distrust with distrust, insistence on legal 
rights with the same. 

" Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
In other men, sleeping, but never dead, 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 223 

Will rise in majesty to meet thine own ; 
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, 
Then will pure light around thy path be shed 
And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone." 

And the blessing of mercy has a yet deeper 
root. Man is made for personal relations. When 
he refuses that sympathy, without which personal 
relations can never deepen, he shuts the door upon 
happiness. He cannot be happy in hard lack of 
sympathy. 

Mercy is a prime condition of happiness. 

The blessing of the pure in heart is the vision Purity in 
of God — in ethical terms, the deepest and com- conditi^ 
pletest revelation of personality. And to see God, of happiness. 
Jesus is sure, means great joy. Our highest joy 
is always joy in personal life ; and the more rich 
and significant the personality, the greater the gift 
to life which the revelation of that personality has 
to make. He who gets the vision of the riches of 
the life of God has, therefore, unfathomable re- 
sources of joy. And just this, Jesus insists, is the 
happiness of the pure in heart. ^ 

Now it is no random promise which Jesus so Reverence 
makes. The connection between the quality and *? of a 

* m J piece. 

the promised blessing is close and inevitable. 
Reverence for the person against strong passion 
naturally leads to the higher reverence to which 
God reveals himself. For all reverence is really 
of a piece ; since to see and recognize God in men 
ought naturally to give power to see God in him- 
self. To be pure in heart, therefore, is to see God. 



224 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

Deep Jesus' fundamental teaching of the fatherhood 

Syto°the of God brin & s us t0 the same result. For this 
reverent. means that God desires to reveal himself as fully 
as possible to men, and waits only for the capacity 
of vision in men. But the completest and deepest 
revelation of personality — human or divine — can 
be made only to the reverent. You do not reveal 
your best and holiest to the profane, to the scorn- 
ful, to the heedless — to the irreverent. If you 
tried to do so, he could not receive it. The real 
meaning of the revelation lies quite beyond him. 
It is on this account, therefore, that Jesus must 
say, " Cast not your pearls before swine." To the 
reverent, then, shall be peculiarly given the vision 
of God. And reverence is found at its highest 
only in the pure in heart. "The secret of the 
Lord is with them that fear him." 
The way to Would one see God ? Men have talked much 
of the " beatific vision," and have had many coun- 
sels for attaining seraphic experiences, and visions 
of God. Jesus seems to say, The way is nigh thee, 
at thy very hand. Say not, Who shall ascend into 
heaven, or descend into the deep ? Only be pure ; 
[recognize the child of God in every soul, and treat 
accordingly, not as a thing, but as a person. What 
nearness to God in such a victory ! You shall see 
me, Jesus seems to say, — right there, you shall 
find me. " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of 
these, my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto 
me." And, "He that receiveth me receiveth him 
that sent me." How quickly and inevitably a little 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 225 

impurity clouds our vision of God. Reverence is 
our window manward, Godward ; impurity clouds 
it. This is, then, no chance connection. God 
reveals himself to the reverent soul, and most of 
all to that soul that is reverent throughout and 
under the severest pressure. Be right with men 
and you shall find God. " Blessed are the pure in 
heart : for they shall see God." From the point 
of view of the ethical, this is a promise that the 
spirit of purity, as Jesus conceives it, is able to 
bring into life in peculiar degree the deep sense 
of the unity and harmony of life. 

Purity in heart is fundamental to the highest 
happiness. 

To the peacemaker Jesus promises the happi- Promoting 
ness of being recognized as the children of God ; pea ^ . as a 

° ° ' condition 

in ethical terms, as belonging to the highest in of happiness, 
character and life. Naturally so ; for the work of 
promoting peace and love among men is the very 
work of God himself. Those who enter preemi- 
nently into that work, share in God's own joy of 
giving, and not merely receiving; they enter as 
sons into the work and joy of the Father. Surely, 
they shall be, and be called, sons of God. Steadily 
there shall deepen for them the sense of their kin- 
ship with God, the high meaning of this highest 
personal relation. As they enter more and more 
into God's loving purpose for men, — into the 
work of the Spirit of God, their own sense of his 
love shall strengthen and the joy of the full con- 
sciousness of sonship be theirs. And they shall 
Q 



226 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

have the added joy, that men will increasingly rec- 
ognize their spirit and call them children of God. 
The unselfish, peace-making life shall not be per- 
manently misunderstood. 

The work of the peacemaker is a clear road to 
happiness. 
Sacrificial And Jesus is not afraid to face, even from the 

condition point of view of happiness, the quality called for 
of happiness, in the last Beatitude. In unfaltering tones he says : 
" Blessed are they that have been persecuted for 
righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven." He knows that men are made for love 
and for high action — for heroic service ; and that 
they cannot be really satisfied with less. Unhesi- 
tatingly, therefore, he appeals to the experience 
of the prophets, and he rings out to men the chal- 
lenge of his own heroic call — to take up the 
cross and follow him. " The cup that I drink ye 
shall drink." And like him, his disciples must 
be able to "take the cup and give thanks." Blind- 
ing himself in no way to the sins of men, no re- 
ligious teacher ever believed so much in the essen- 
tial possibilities and glory of men. There is 
no slightest trace of cynicism in him. He calls 
to courageous self-sacrifice, and yet expects loyal, 
enthusiastic following. He knows, as Hinton 
puts it, that "all pains may be summed up in 
sacrifice, and sacrifice is the instrument of joy." 
As George Eliot says, "We can indeed only 
have the highest happiness, such as goes with 
being a great man, by having wide thoughts and 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 22/ 

much feeling for the rest of the world as well as 
ourselves ; and this sort of happiness often brings 
so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from 
pain by its being what we should choose above 
everything." This is only part of that great 
paradox of life which Jesus so plainly saw : He 
who would save his life must lose it. " Except a 
grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it 
abideth by itself alone." 

No wonder that Jesus promises to this coura- Sharing 
geous, suffering, self-sacrificing love, the Kingdom God>s llfe * 
of Heaven, not merely potentially, as to the hum- 
ble, but actually. Joyful, self-sacrificing love has 
the kingdom, already possesses it in its own heart. 
Love is the supreme gift, and includes all else. 
It is life at its highest, God's own life, " the life 
that is life indeed." It never fails. This is the one 
eternal thing. To such, Christ must say, " Come 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world." 
The best, the eternal best, belongs to love, is love. 
" Blessed are they that have been persecuted for 
righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven," — the highest good. They share, as no 
others can, the full inner depth of the very mean- 
ing of the life and joy of God. 

Sacrificial love is the highest condition of happi- The 
ness. ^Jj ties 

of the 

In all this, Jesus does not play with the prob- Beatitudes 
lem of human happiness. He loves men ; and ^ondTtions 
he loves them too much to wish to cheat them of happiness. 



228 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The 
qualities 
of the 
Beatitudes 
the natural 
conditions 
for influence. 



The in- 
fluence of 
the joyous 
life. 



with husks. He knows well that he who would 
make men deeply and permanently happy, cannot 
stop on the surface, as most pleasure-seekers and 
pleasure-makers do, but must pierce deeply to the 
heart of man's being, must see how great he is, 
and satisfy the greatest in him. The conditions 
of happiness, therefore, which he prescribes, are 
fundamental and thoroughgoing. Here, in the 
Beatitudes, are the great conditions of happiness 
of life. These qualities are the inevitable con- 
ditions of growth, and of the highest work and 
of the highest friendship ; and these alone insure 
happiness. 

3. Influence. And here, not less, are the prime 
conditions of influence. For these qualities are, 
in the first place, the natural conditions for affect- 
ing others. The open-minded man, who is known 
to be without prejudice or one-sidedness, natu- 
rally carries special weight with others. And a 
modest sense of one's own defects disarms opposi- 
tion and makes possible a service to others that 
would be denied to self-conceit. He will most cer- 
tainly rule others who in severe self-mastery has 
himself in hand. The earnestness of the eager 
pursuit of righteousness carries conviction. Intel- 
ligent sympathy and a real respect for the person 
of another, the evident seeking of his good, and 
willingness to sacrifice for it, make your influence 
with him absolutely certain. 

As the great conditions of happiness, too, these 
qualities inevitably count with others. Happiness 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 229 

itself attracts, wins, weighs with men. And that 
man, that by his joy shows that he is living the 
true, normal, harmonious life, cannot help being 
strongly influential. 

But when Jesus declares that those who have The con- 
these qualities of the Beatitudes shall be the salt ^^^ 
of the earth and the light of the world, he is 
thinking, of course, of influence for good, influence 
in bringing on that great coming civilization of 
brotherly men, upon which he has set his heart. 
Here, obviously, those shall count most who 
already, in their characters, belong to that civili- 
zation. Character comes by contagion. We must 
be what we would have others become. Every such 
man as Jesus describes in the Beatitudes is a liv- 
ing seed of the coming civilization of brotherly men. 

And the men of these qualities count, besides, Work for 
because these qualities involve work, immediate theKmg- 
and direct, for that coming civilization. Every 
stroke by such men counts in the upbuilding of 
the true society. They are not dreaming of the 
goal, or longing for the goal merely. Promoting 
peace among men, and sacrificing for men, they 
are steadily making the goal more certain. Here 
in the Beatitudes, then, are to be found the su- 
preme conditions of influence also. 

Character, happiness, influence — these make Summary. 
life. And their prime conditions Jesus has named 
in the Beatitudes. Here, then, indeed, are our 
map of life, our chart, our sailing orders, even in 
the purely ethical sphere. 



230 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Character. 



Happiness. 



Influence. 



In the Beatitudes, therefore, Jesus is virtually 
saying to the " disciple multitude " before him : I 
wish you, first and most of all, character. These 
qualities which I have named are the really basic 
qualities of character. They are not popular vir- 
tues ; the world has hardly counted them virtues at 
all ; and they will still be regarded by many even 
of my professed disciples as rather subsidiary and 
only "passive." Nevertheless are they essential 
and absolutely basic. I wish you character. 

And I wish you joy. Not carelessly, as those 
who know not what they wish ! But fully, know- 
ing what it costs, I wish you joy — the best, the 
largest, the richest, the deepest joy that life can 
give. And I wish it though I know that, in my 
wish, I am really praying that God would deepen 
in you humility, and penitence, and self-control, 
and undying earnestness, and sympathy, and pu- 
rity, and the spirit of reconciliation and of coura- 
geous self-sacrifice. Because I covet for you the 
best, I wish you joy — joy of growth, joy of self- 
conquest, joy of friendship, joy of service, joy of 
sacrifice, joy of God. 

And I wish you influence, that you may count. 
The steady oncoming of the civilization of brotherly 
men demands in its leaders just these qualities of 
which I have spoken. Ye know that the rulers of 
the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones 
exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be 
among you ; but whosoever would become great 
among you shall be your minister, and whosoever 



THE BASIC QUALITIES OF LIFE 23 1 

would be first among you shall be your servant ; 
even as the Son of man came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom 
for many. Knowing the cost of leadership, I wish 
for you influence — that you may count. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING, IN THE SERMON 
ON THE MOUNT. 

Even in the study of the Beatitudes, as the out- 
lines of the Sermon themselves suggest, we have 
been dealing implicitly with the principles of the 
entire Sermon. But those principles come out 
still more plainly in a study of the motives to 
living, which Jesus here points out. 
The uiti- If Jesus is right in his insistence on love — un- 

gate prob- selfish friendship — as the one indispensable thing 
in life, then for individual and for national life, for 
character and for social service, for ethics and for 
religion, for the earthly life and for the eternal 
outlook, the ultimate problem for every man is 
simply the problem of learning to live the life of 
a genuine, intelligent, thoroughgoing love. No 
deeper, no more difficult, no more significant task 
anywhere confronts us. This is our ultimate 
problem in living, to which we must ever return. 
And the true final examination, in the thought of 
Jesus, in any education for life has just one ques- 
tion: How much does a person mean to you ? have 
you learned really to be a good friend ? 

All this one might believe, and yet be entirely 
problem. hopeless in view of it. It too often seems to us 

232 



The diffi- 
culty of the 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 233 

men that the one thing we cannot do is to rise to 
an impartial and unselfish love of men. What is 
the actual practical way out of suspicion, and 
meanness, and envy, and jealousy, and malice, 
and slander, and hate, and lust, into friendship and 
brotherliness ? Who can show it ? Who can make 
us able to tread it ? 

Now in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus faced Jesus' 
just this problem for all men, as it had never been solutlon - 
faced before. And his vigorous grappling with 
the how of love mightily concerns us all. It is not 
the hardness, but the possibility and the way of 
the loving life, which he is constrained here to 
bring out. After defining the elements of a true 
love in the Beatitudes, Jesus goes on to use with 
men, more or less definitely, four great motives 
to the loving life, that he believed were able to 
drive out hate (5 : 21-26), and lust (5 : 27-32), and 
falsity (5 : 33-37), and retaliation (5 : 38-42), and 
Pharisaic righteousness (6 : 1-18), and the spirit of 
contempt (7 : 1-12), and to bring in a true and all- 
comprehending love. He appeals, that is, (1) to 
the principle of the unity of the inner life, (2) to 
his own thought of the fulfillment of the law, 

(3) to the fact that every man is a brother, and 

(4) to the further fact that God is Father. 

Three of these motives correspond closely to The 
the main divisions of the Sermon in its charac- *t otl J- es - - n 

the divisions 

terization of the righteousness of the new civiliza- of the 
tion: as an inner fulfillment of the law — the motive Sermon - 
of fulfilling; as a secret righteousness unto the 



234 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Are the 
motives 
adequate ? 



The central 
motive, God 
as Father. 



Jesus' 
putting of 
the principle. 



Father — the motive, "thy Father"; and as the 
righteousness of a sacred reverence for the person 
— the motive, "thy brother"; though no one of 
these thoughts is confined to any one of the sec- 
tions. The fourth motive — the unity of the inner 
life — lies back of the entire Sermon, as a constant 
law of man's nature, often appealed to by Jesus, 
as we have already seen, and here several times 
explicitly repeated. 

Are these motives adequate? Have they real 
power to save to the genuinely friendly life ? Let 
us not hesitate to see the matter through. We 
may test thus, practically, the ethics of Jesus as 
in no other way. 

These motives, no doubt, are all involved in the 
one great central motive and message of Jesus — 
God as Father, the ethical conviction of love at the 
heart of the world. And still each has a certain 
independent force that deserves separate recogni- 
tion. 

I. The unity of the inner life 

And, first, Jesus appeals, in the Sermon on the 
Mount, again and again to that principle which is 
one of the main contentions of modern psychology, 
the unity of our life. Both the keeping and the 
transgression of the law, in Jesus' thought, tend 
to a consistent unity; "one of these least com- 
mandments " is vital (5 : 19). The contemptuous, 
the condemnatory, and the angry spirit are all of 
a piece and must have their full logical results 
(5 : 22, 26). The evil of the stumbling member 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 235 

is so sure to permeate the whole, that life can be 
kept at all only by the resolute cutting off of the 
evil (5 : 29-30). So dominant is this principle of 
the unity in the life, that danger lurks in all 
speech, even, that is not simple, direct, accurate, 
and genuine (5:37). No aim, indeed, is really 
safe but the harmonious perfection of the Father's 
life (5 : 48). The true reward of righteous char- 
acter is that inner inevitable recompense not seen 
of men, but given by "the Father that seeth in 
secret" (6:1, 4, 6). Unless there is singleness 
of vision, the whole life is darkened ; the impos- 
sible double service of " two masters " is attempted 
(6 : 22-24). There can be, too, no reliable moral 
insight into another, where evil is cherished ; the 
cherished evil is a beam in the eye (7 : 5). One 
single principle of consistent putting yourself in 
the other's place would fulfill all righteousness 
(7:12). It is a narrow way that leads to life 

(7:i3-i4> 

Even so, repeatedly, Jesus uses with men, in this The unity 
part of his teaching, this principle of the unity * nne * . a /J d 
of the inner life. The whole inner life is a unity ; 
it is all of a piece. No part of the life can go up 
or down alone. Good or evil cherished anywhere 
tends to permeate the whole. There is no possible 
stopping of this inner consequence. Every sin is 
thus its own worst punishment, it tends to repro- 
duce its kind ; so, too, every bit of righteousness is 
its own best reward. In the fight for character we 
are not, therefore, embracing or rejecting things 



236 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



No double 

standard 

possible. 



All love a 
seed of life. 



laid on miscellaneously and from without, but re- 
ceiving in ourselves the simple, inevitable, logical 
consequences of our own choices. 

Every intelligent observer of his own life knows 
that he cannot consciously fall below his best at 
any point, and not invite a moral slump all along 
the line. On the other hand, how certainly the 
will, thoroughly aroused at one point, is strength- 
ened at every point of attack! Or, we may say 
that if, according to the teaching of Jesus, only love 
is life, and if man is made for love, then every bit 
of hate in me works for death ; every bit of love 
works for life. When, then, our ideals and aims 
are at their lowest, when we can hardly conceive 
that God is Father, or that man is brother, then 
still we can say, " Let me not die ; my life is a 
unit, and love is life and hate is death ; let me 
learn to love for my very life's sake." Upon this 
principle of the unity of our life, then, the ineradi- 
cable and insatiable love of life itself drives men 
forward into the life of love. 

For, on the one hand, I am compelled to see 
that, however injured I have been, however de- 
served the other's punishment, still suspicion and 
contempt and hate are the very working of death 
in me. This other may have acted most un- 
worthily ; at least, I must not allow his ignoble 
spirit to provoke me into a like un worthiness ; that 
would be injury indeed. And this holds for races 
and classes as well as for individuals. The race 
that hates is punished far more than the race 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 237 

hated. We are failing in the very end of our own 
being, when we allow the spirit contrary to love. 
Every bit of hate counts for death, and must there- 
fore be resolutely cut out at any cost, like an eat- 
ing cancer. On the other hand, every bit of true 
love counts for good. To be a good son, a good 
brother, a good husband, a good father, a good 
friend, a good neighbor, a good citizen, — these 
are the great homely ways of life, and are seeds of 
life, and themselves enlargements of life. How a 
single, honest, unselfish kindness to another tends 
to reproduce itself, irradiates the day, and makes 
every righteous impulse more natural and easy ! 

Men are prone enough to deny this strenuous The de- 
principle of Jesus, of the unity of life, and to say man ? t f< ^ c 
to themselves : " We can fail here and it will make 
no difference yonder. We can be cowardly and 
vacillating here and still equally brave and decisive 
elsewhere. We may fall below the highest in our 
love now, and find it meaning the same afterward. 
We can be impure, and still leave our honesty 
unaffected. We can be false, and still be pure." 
But ive cannot. And the severity and strictness of 
Jesus' demands are only calls for a completer, 
more perfect love, that is, for completer life. 
These demands only voice Jesus' deep conviction, 
that the very nature of man calls for a thorough- 
going consistency in the inner life. 

tt -r 1J211 .. Jesus' use 

11. ruljiiiment of this 

The same principle of unity in the life, thus, p rinci P le 

leads naturally to the second of Jesus' great Sermon. 



238 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

motives, to emphasis on thoroughness, carrying the 
right course fully through to the end, to its full 
fruit. One must fill full the law of righteousness 
if he would receive its complete results. As in our 
thinking, all our greatest difficulties come from 
"terminating investigation prematurely," refusing 
to carry to the end the demands of reason, so in our 
practical living, the unsatisfactory results arise from 
the fact that we have not been in dead earnest with 
the principle of righteousness and life. Jesus makes, 
therefore, the very key-note of his teaching in the 
Sermon on the Mount this thought of fulfillment. 
" I came," he says, " not to destroy the law or the 
prophets, but to fulfill " (5 : 17). You are to follow, 
he says, the least hint of the law of duty (5:18, 
19). Your righteousness must exceed that of the 
most scrupulous Pharisee (5 : 20). You will carry 
your fight against evil back of the murderous act to 
the spirit of anger and contempt in the heart, and 
replace it with the spirit that would rather seek rec- 
onciliation (5:21-26). You will carry your fight 
against evil back of the licentious act to the spirit 
of impurity in the heart, at whatever cost (5:27- 
30). You will not be content merely to perform 
your oaths, but will press forward to the attainment 
of the spirit of the simplest truthfulness, that makes 
all oaths unnecessary (5 : 33-37). You will not be 
content merely to observe some seemingly just limi- 
tation in retaliation for injury, but you will rather 
go forward to the setting aside of all retaliation, 
and replacing it by the positive spirit of love, that 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 239 

would serve far beyond the demands that the self- 
ishness of the other might make upon you (5 : 38- 
42). You will thus fulfill and perfect and carry out 
into its full fruitage the law of righteousness in a 
completing love toward all men, that will make you 
true sons of the Father (5 : 43-48). You will not 
be content with a righteousness of the outward act 
that may approve itself to men, but will demand 
from yourself rather that inner secret righteous- 
ness of the heart, seen of the Father alone, and 
that he may approve (6: 1, 4, 6, 18). Beyond all 
acquisition of external possessions, you will give 
your heart only to that treasure of the inner char- 
acter that shall abide on into the ages (6: 19-21). 
You will recognize the narrow gate and the strait- 
ened way of the genuinely unselfish life, and spare 
no pains to find it (7 : 14). And beyond all devout 
profession and all diligent hearing of the word of 
duty you will count the doing of the will of the 
Father, the departing from iniquity (7: 21-23). 

All this means that, in the thought of Jesus, it The true 
is not the avoidance of the law of God as far e x tension 

of the law 

as possible, but the completest fulfillment of it, inner and 
which is the road to life and happiness, carrying ^tern™* 
the spirit of the law into the remotest ramifications, and me- 
into the inmost spirit of che life. The blessing of chanicaL 
God, to Jesus' thought, is not, then, an external 
reward to be won by the doing of some particu- 
larly distasteful task, one to which, with great 
pains, you have even added disagreeable elements. 
Rather the true extension of the law of God is not 



240 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The danger 
of the ex- 
ternal exten- 
sion of the 
law. 



The inner 
extension 
of the law 
tends to 
humility. 



outer and mechanical, but inner and ideal, in spirit 
not letter. The vast extent of the Buddhist com- 
mand not to kill anything, for example, does not so 
much elevate the life of the gnat as degrade the 
life of man ; the punctilious observance of Jewish 
tithings and washings did not so much guard the 
great essentials of the law, as tend to draw time 
and attention away from these essentials. Mo- 
nastic asceticism and works of supererogation do 
not so much extend genuine righteousness, as tend 
to replace the great requirements of righteous- 
ness. 

It may well be noted, too, how inevitably the 
mechanical and external extension of the law every- 
where promotes a spiritual pride. The man seems 
to himself to be doing more than he is required to 
do, and so to be deserving of some special recog- 
nition from God and men. There is always danger 
in exalting certain externals as infallible signs of 
righteousness or religion. Men need always to be 
on their guard against erecting those external rules, 
which they may rightly enough have laid down for 
themselves, into universal standards of righteous- 
ness. Jesus himself refuses to submit to any of 
these external tests, as determining the attitude of 
his spirit, whether the external test be washings, 
or fastings, or association with publicans and sin- 
ners, or the external law of the Sabbath. 

On the other hand, the inner extension of the 
law, the clear discernment that its only true obedi- 
ence must be from within, just because it is inevi- 






THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 24 1 

tably connected with continually growing insight 
into the possibilities of moral growth, into the much 
that is yet to be attained, tends directly to humility, 
where the external extension tended to pride. 

Now, this thought of the need of thoroughgoing Duty points 
fulfillment may well become a powerful motive to f he wa ? to 

J r larger life. 

help us into the life of unselfish love. If you 
would really find your way to righteousness and 
peace and freedom and life in relation to the man 
who has wronged you, Jesus suggests, do not try 
to see how short a way you can go in obedience to 
God's command, " Thou shalt not kill," or in rec- 
onciliation to the other, but how far you can go. 
Take the command as merely a gracious hint of 
the line along which the largest life may come to 
you. Go as far as you can go. Fill full this law 
Leave not one jot or one tittle undone, one least 
commandment in this direction unfulfilled (5 : 17, 
18, 19, 21, 22). Do much more than you must do; 
do all that love could suggest (5 : 39-42). So and 
only so can we find peace and freedom and life. 
Duty, Jesus never forgets, is the Father's will; 
and the Father's will is our life, not a limitation of 
life. Or, in ethical terms, duty is but the law of 
one's own being, and only in the line of that law 
can life lie. Duty, thus, points the way to greater 
life and blessing ; it does not hinder our life at any 
point. Not, then, the transgression of the law of 
duty, and not the abrogation of the law of duty, 
but rather welcoming it, throwing oneself with all 
one's heart into the completest fulfillment of it, can 

R 



freedom. 



242 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

bring real life. We need not fear, therefore ; the 
fullest obedience leads to the fullest life. 
A new It has often been said of the Sermon on the 

Mount, that it only gives to men a deeper condem- 
nation because it insists upon a higher standard of 
righteousness. This, I think, is to misconceive its 
main thought. 1 For Jesus is urging a view of the 
law of duty quite contrary to that often held, that 
in itself contains promise of deliverance from the 
sense of bondage to the law. In harmony with 
the modern conception of duty as simply the law 
of our own natures, and therefore the law of life 
for us, Jesus does not set the law of God over 
against the love of God, but rather sees that the 
law of God is a priceless part of the revelation of 
the love of God, — God's disclosure of the way of 
growing life for us. If, therefore, he is virtually 
saying, you really believe in the love of God, you 
will have no desire to fight his will; you will 
recognize each command, however hard it now 
seems, as in truth a blessed loving hint of the line 
of life. And when one so sees it, he will welcome 
the call of duty, not fight it. He is given free- 
dom. He chooses, of his own will, the line of 
duty. He looks at duty in a different light. He 



1 Nor is the Sermon on the Mount merely ethics; it contains 
the essential religion of Jesus, also, as its main contentions show. 
(See above, p. 200.) It is often too narrowly limited to ethics in 
the characterization of it. (Cf. Gore, op. cit., p. 1; Augustine, 
Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. VI, p. 3; ctr. Gladden, The 
Church and Modern Life, pp. 162-163.) 






THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 243 

has a new spirit that welcomes the whole of duty. 
He desires to fill the law full. 1 

If, with this new feeling toward duty, now, one 
is in dead earnest in the fulfilling of the law of 
righteousness, he will be driven not to the multi- 
plying of external observances, but rather driven 
back to deal with the inner spirit of his life, out of 
which all outward action springs, determined to 
plant there the true spirit of love to which the 
command always looks. And the supreme mo- 
tives that must lie back of every such positive 
method of dealing with the inner spirit of selfish- 
ness, are to be found only in Jesus' faith in God 
as Father, and in man as brother. 

III. "Thy brother" 

We shall hardly come into a real love of another Jesus' use 
unless we can believe that in some way he deserves cipie^n&e" 
our love. And we have to fall back, therefore, on Sermon. 
that thought of men as our brothers so certainly 
involved in Jesus' thought of God as Father. It 
seems to Jesus to be an inevitable inference from 
the thought that God is Father — that is, that 
there is love at the very heart of the world — that 
men should necessarily think of one another as 
brothers, all alike children of the Father, and to 
be treated and loved as such. The motive is not 
the less powerful that it seems with Jesus so inci- 
dental; rather is it incidental because it carries 
inevitable force with it. He would have men re- 
member that it is their brother with whom they 

1 Cf. Gould, The Biblical Theology of the New Testament, pp. 29 ff . 



244 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The mean- 
ing of 
brotherhood. 



Our indis- 
soluble 
connection 
with others. 



are angry, their brother of whom they are willing 
to speak with such contempt, their brother that 
has somewhat against them, their brother to whom 
they must be reconciled (5 : 22-24). Even those 
who are enemies and persecutors are nevertheless 
to be loved as brothers (5 : 44, 47). He reminds 
men, who are so ready to judge, that it is a brother 
whose fault they are magnifying, a brother whom 
in pride they feel quite able to correct, blind to 
their own fault (7 : 3-5). 

If I am to love men, then, I need to believe that 
they are my brothers, that is, (1) that the life of 
every man is knit up indissolubly with my own ; 
(2) that he is like me ; and (3) that in some true 
sense he has a sacred and priceless personality in 
Jesus' thought, — is a child of God. Then I can- 
not wish to kill or hate or despise or condemn him. 

That men are my brothers means, then, in the 
first place, that our lives are indissolubly knit up 
together. For, to mention no other consideration, 
for one's own life, according to Jesus' fundamental 
principle, one needs most of all to love. We have 
much to say, in education, of self-development, 
and of enlarging and enriching life. Have we 
made it quite clear to ourselves that the one life 
that makes enlargement or enrichment absolutely 
impossible is the selfish life ? " Selfish culture," 
from Jesus' point of view, is a contradiction in 
terms. The whole trend of the life of selfishness 
is toward loveless and fruitless loneliness, the deso- 
lation of the desert waste. To real enlargement 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 245 

of life there is one sole way — through the giving 
of ourselves in loving self-sacrifice to others. Let 
us, then, make it quite clear to ourselves that this 
other who so wearies and tires and exasperates us, 
with whom we seem to have so little in common, 
whose wrong toward us we cannot forget, and 
whose spirit, even, we may not be able to approve, 
is still knit up with our life in a way not to be 
spared. He is our brother. In loving him, even 
if he despises our love, we shall find the larger life 
for ourselves ; for love itself is life. 

And that the other man is our brother means Essential 
also that, whether we will or not, he is really very llkeness - 
like us. We strive to put him in quite another 
class, and yet, if we will be honest, we are con- 
strained to admit that he is, nevertheless, in the 
great essentials just like us, with the same faculties, 
the same fundamental doubleness of nature, the 
same variableness, the same great possibilities, the 
same great universal interests ; and these respects 
which are common to us all are, after all, greater 
than those which divide class from class. Duty 
may compel us to judge ; we may have to disap- 
prove ; but we are not to yield to a loveless zeal. 

With clear perception, then, that in the great Discerning 
essentials the other is like us, " intensely human," the llkeness - 
let us put ourselves really in his place. Let us 
apply with some real imagination Jesus' principle 
of the golden rule (Matt. 7 : 12), and ask ourselves 
how the treatment which we give him we would 
ourselves feel. We are not to lord it over others. 



246 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Sympathetic 
under- 
standing. 



No class 
barriers. 



And we are to get rid, above all, of contempt. 1 
We are to get this other's angle of vision, and not 
drug our conscience with the deadly sedative that 
this other — of the other temperament, the other 
class, or the other race — is quite a different being 
from ourselves. The most horrible cruelties of 
history have flowed spontaneously from this lying 
denial of the likeness of men. 

And that the other is like us means, too, that 
we may be sure that, as we are conscious that there 
is much of good in us that others do not recognize, 
so in him there is no doubt a nobler side than that 
turned toward us. Temperamental differences 
here may hide much from us. We may well fix 
our attention on his best, not on his worst. It is 
difficult enough in any case to find our way with 
sureness into the real inner life of another; we 
shall find it quite impossible if we attempt it in 
any hard and unsympathetic spirit. It requires 
"a heart at leisure from itself " even to understand 
another. 

We can hardly claim, indeed, to have risen to the 
level of even the common consciousness of our 
time, if we are not ready to recognize the ideals of 
others, though expressed in quite unconventional 
forms. The willingness to see and to cherish 
ideals, and the heroism persistently to live or 
unhesitatingly to die for them, let us be sure, is 
not confined to our clique or to our race. Have 

1 Cf. Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace, pp. 39, 49, 50, 58, 59, 
I5°> J 53. 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 247 

we really open eyes for the hidden ideals in the 
lives that seem to us unlike our own, — laborer, cap- 
italist, negro, white, educated, uneducated, quick, 
or slow ? It is not a true interpretation of the 
Christian law of love which insists upon either 
racial or class barriers to the setting aside of the 
far more fundamental likeness of men. We owe 
reverence and faith and love not merely to those 
whom we call our own, but to all, — in the sig- 
nificant words of Jesus, " despairing of no man " 
(Luke 6: 35, margin). And we shall have no final 
peace, either as individuals or as a nation, until we 
recognize in its entirety this primal law of Jesus. 

And that the other is like us means, once more, Likeness in 
that he is a man with like limitations and tempta- tem P tatlons - 
tions and struggles, with like self-condemnation and 
like suffering. And if we really believe it, how- 
ever impossible it may be for us always to approve, 
it will still be possible always to pity and always to 
seek his real good. To us may be visible only the 
hard and haughty bearing which he puts on as a 
kind of shell between himself and the world. But 
we do not know the hours of bitter self -judgment — 
the times of struggle, though it may be weak ; the 
moments, at least, of appeal to God. 

He is our brother, he is like us ; we can love 
him, we must love him. 

So, too, that every man is a child of God is Every man 
no commonplace, though the language is familiar 
enough. The ethical and religious motives evi- 
dently here come together ; but the full sweep of 



a child of 
God. 



248 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Loved by 
God. 



Of infinite 
possibilities. 



The brother 
not a judge. 



the ethical will not be seen, without consideration 
of Jesus' religious putting of the matter. 

And that men are children of God means, in the 
first place, to Jesus, that this one against whom 
we harbor the bitter and revengeful spirit is, 
though he may be in the wrong, still a child of 
the heavenly Father, loved of God, grieved over, 
longed for, sought out. God loves us ; God loves 
him. We can hardly recognize for ourselves what 
it means to be children of God and still maintain a 
spirit of bitterness and enmity toward this other, 
in like manner also a child of the heavenly Father. 

And that any one should have this place in the 
thought of God means that he is in himself of 
priceless interest, with the power of the endless 
life upon him, and with infinite possibilities. No 
limits can be set to his growth in knowledge, in 
power, in character, in the ongoing of his sharing 
of the life of God. It is this being whom we are. 
asked to take into account in our thought, even as 
God thinks of him. And when we really think of 
the infinite outlook involved in these possibilities, 
we can hardly wish to do other than to share in 
God's own work of patient, long-suffering, self- 
sacrificing love on behalf of this man. The 
being for whom God cares is not unworthy of our 
love. 

And if he is your brother, you too are only 
brother, and you are not to play the judge (7 : 2-5). 
The more like he is to you, the more clear it 
should be to you that no one can stand unsym- 



reverence. 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 249 

pathetically without and rightly judge him. Get 
down off from the judge's bench. Judge yourself, 
not him. 

And yet this same respect which you would Seif- 
thus show the value and sacredness of his person- 
ality, you must have for yourself. And you are to 
allow none to exploit your inner life, to profane it 
at its sources. You can and you may reveal your 
best only to the reverent (7 : 6). 

IV. " Thy Father" 

And when we turn to Jesus' fourth motive, we Jesus' use 
cannot fail to see that the thought of God as of ? 1S . 

° motive m 

Father, or, in ethical terms, of love at the heart the Sermon. 
of the world, is the basic assumption in the entire 
Sermon on the Mount, and permeates its teaching 
throughout, explicitly recurring, also, again and 
again. Those who promote peace among men are 
to be recognized as sons of God (5 :g). The ear- 
nest life of men, like the obedient spirit of chil- 
dren, is to bring glory to God as Father (5 : 16). 
In sharing the life of God, in the spirit of universal 
love, men show that they are the true sons of the 
Father (5 : 44-48). The Father desires in his chil- 
dren the genuine filial spirit, and a love akin to 
his own, and can take no satisfaction in acts that 
spring out of any other spirit. His blessing can 
be upon no other (6 : 1, 4, 6, 14, 15, 18). Men may 
come to God in prayer, in the profoundest trust 
in his knowledge of them and his love for them 
(6 : 8, 9-13 ; 7 : 7-1 1). And if God is Father, and 
there is love at the very heart of the world, then 



250 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Man made 
for love. 



Love at the 
heart of the 
world. 



God's for- 
giving love 
for us. 



surely men may be freed from anxiety and live in 
trust and peace (6 : 25-34). 

This is the great motive underlying all other 
motives, the conviction out of which the rest 
spring. It means that you yourself are made 
for love, it is the law of your own nature ; only 
love can bring harmony into that nature ; without 
love you are constantly at cross-purposes with 
yourself. If, therefore, you would have unity 
even in your own nature, you must learn to love. 

And not only is love the law of your own 
nature. This motive of the Father means, too, 
that there is love at the heart of the world, that 
the universe is on the side of the loving will. In 
religious terms, God is your Father ; you cannot 
fail to respond to the Father's love. Jesus puts 
strongly this religious appeal. 

There is involved in Jesus' repeated reference 
to " thy Father " a close and personal appeal. God's 
forgiving love for us, Jesus seems to say, must send 
us in shame and humility to our brother (5 : 23-24; 
6:14, 15). We cannot for a moment clearly see 
the position in which we have put ourselves in 
relation to God, and not feel the biting sarcasm 
of Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant. To 
awake to the real meaning of the long-suffering 
and forgiving love of God toward us can hardly 
fail to stir at least some beginnings of forgiveness 
and love toward our fellow servant. And there is 
a genuine ethical conviction embedded in this warm 
religious appeal. It is just that assurance of which 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 25 1 

we have spoken, of a moral trend in the universe, 
that the universe is on the side of the loving will. 
To avoid much circumlocution, Jesus' religious form 
of statement is retained. 

The thought of God as the loving Father means, Sharing 
also, that we cannot share the life of the Father 1 t ^ e Father ' s 
without love. That while we still cherish the un- 
forgiving spirit, we are irrevocably shut out from 
God's life (5 : 23-24; 6: 14, 15). And this, not at 
all on account of any vindictive unwillingness on 
God's part to forgive, without some similar con- 
cession on the man's part to balance it. Even in 
a great human friendship, the relation is inevita- 
bly hindered when we allow ourselves consciously 
to fall below the spirit of the nobler life. So, still 
more, in our relation to God must the harbored' 
evil build a wall of separation. One comes to de-, 
spise himself, indeed, that it can be a temptation 
at all, — this hate, this envy, this jealousy, this 
half joy in another's failure, especially where any 
comparison with oneself is involved. One cannot; 
draw near to God with this spirit in his heart. It 
is the insurmountable something between him and ' 
God. 

The thought of God as Father, as living love, Real 
means also that love is the very life of God, and vlctor y- 
that, therefore, in Jesus' thought, love is life ; that 
hate, consequently, can give no blessing, that it 
only lessens our power to love and to be loved, 
chills the whole stream of life in us, makes us in- 
evitably less and able to enjoy less. And it gives, 



252 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

besides, no real victory over the other. Whatever 
the injustice you have suffered, not even the kill- 
ing of the other can give any real gain. Brown- 
ing faces this thought through to the end in his 

"After": — 

"Take the cloak from his face, and at first 
Let the corpse do its worst ! 

How he lies in his rights of a man ! 

Death has done all death can. 
And, absorbed in the new life he leads, 

He recks not, he heeds 
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike 

On his senses alike, 
And are lost in the solemn and strange 

Surprise of the change. 

Ha, what avails death to erase 

His offense, my disgrace ? 
I would we were boys as of old 

In the field, by the fold; 
His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn 

Were so easily borne. 

I stand here now, he lies in his place ; 
Cover the face." 

There can be no final victory over the other, but 
the victory over yourself in the attainment of a 
better spirit, in turning the other's hate into love, 
in making him love you, in at least making sure 
that in his very heart, so far as he knows you, he 
has reason to respect you, to believe in you. Or- 
ville Dewey is but following out Christ's own 
teaching when he says : " Every relation to man- 
kind, of hate or scorn or neglect, is full of vexa- 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 253 

tion and torment. There is nothing to do with 
men but to love them; to contemplate their vir- 
tues with admiration, their faults with pity and 
forbearance, and their injuries with forgiveness. 
Task all the ingenuity of your mind to devise 
some other thing, but you never can find it. To 
hate your adversary will not help you ; to kill him 
will not help you ; nothing within the compass of 
the universe can help you, but to love him." But 
that is real victory and real life for both. 

And this thought of God as Father, the genuine The conse- 
faith in living: love at the heart of the world, makes q uenc . es °f 

° * trust in the 

possible a life of trust, of peace, of hope, of cour- Father, 
age (6 : 4, 6, 8, 9-13, 18, 25-34), of l° ve tike the 
Highest (5 : 44-48), and of undismayed service 
(5 • 39~4 2 )- And these are all ethical results of 
the highest significance. 

These four principles, then, are Christ's great The thought 
motives to living, his secret of life. All spring ^r^U 
from one faith, love at the heart of the world, God the other 
our Father. All look to one spirit, love. Back of motives - 
all of them stands the personality of Jesus himself, 
both showing and interpreting the love of God 
and unstinted love for men, and enabling us to be- 
lieve in such love and to catch at least some meas- 
ure of it from the contagion of his own life. 1 

God is Father. Love cannot be partial. There- 
fore, also, life is a marvelous unity, and sin is its 
own worst punishment and love its own best re- 
ward. The power of a consistent love is ours. 

1 Cf. Haering, The Ethics of the Christian Life, pp. 174, 178. 



254 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

God is Father. Therefore his commands are our 
life, and both the keeping of the law and deliver- 
ance from the law, both righteousness and freedom, 
come from simply filling the law full, carrying the 
spirit to which the law looks down deep into the 
inmost recesses of the life. The power of a radical 
love is ours. 

God is Father. Therefore every man is a child 
of God, like us, knit up in life with us. The 
power of a gracious love is ours. 

God is Father. And love is life. Love, infinite 
and eternal, is at the heart of things. We can 
think and still live at the same time, because it is 
given us to start from this primal faith in the love 
of God. The power of a godlike love is ours. 

Consistent, radical, gracious, godlike ! And if 
we will not be consistent and radical, we shall not 
be gracious and godlike. 

As the unity and comprehensiveness of Jesus' 
ethical teaching come out especially in a consid- 
eration of the great motives to living as set forth 
in the Sermon on the Mount, it may be helpful to 
give here a condensed summary of these motives 
in ethical form, as derived from the thought of 
God as Father, and so briefly to recapitulate the 
entire discussion. 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 255 

THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING AS SEEN IN 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 1 

I. " Thy Father." 5 : 9, 16, 44-48 ; 6 : 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 
18,26,32; 7: 11, 21. 2 
This is the great motive underlying all other motives, the 
conviction out of which the rest spring. It means : — 

1 . You yourself are made for love ; it is the law of your 

own nature. Only love can bring harmony into 
it ; without it you are constantly at cross-purposes 
with yourself. 

2. And there is love at the heart of the world. The uni- 

verse is on the side of the loving will. (God is your 
Father. You cannot fail to respond to the Father's 
love, — to the contagion of the loving life of God.) 

3. Love alone, therefore, is life, sharing in the highest 

life (sharing in the life of God himself). 

4. This makes possible a life of trust, of peace, of hope, 

of courage (6: 4, 6, 8, 9-13, 18, 25-34) ; of love, 
like the highest (like the Father) (5 : 44-48) ; and 
of undismayed service (5 : 39-42). 
II. The unity of life. Life all of a piece. No isolated sec- 
tions. "No man can serve two masters.'" 5 : 18, 19, 
22, 26, 28, 29, 30, 37, 48; 6:4, 6, 22-24; 7'$, 12, 
13-14. 3 
1. If man is a unity, then good or evil cherished any- 
where tends to permeate the whole, tends to repro- 
duce its kind. 

1 Cf. Mathews, The Social Teaching of fesus, ch. VIII, " The 
Forces of Human Progress." 

2 Cf. Harnack, What is Christianity ?, pp. 63 ff. ; Beyschlag, 
New Testament Theology, vol. I, pp. 80-82 ; Bruce, The Kingdom 
of God, ch. IV; Haering, The Ethics of the Christian Life, pp. 
178 ff. 

3 Cf. Ecce Homo, p. 344 ; Peabody, fesus Christ and the Social 
Question, pp. 342 ff. 



256 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

2. And if only love is life, and man is made for love, 

then every bit of hate in me works for death ; 
every bit of love works for life. 

3. This principle urges, thus, thoroughgoing consistency 

in a genuine love. 
III. Fulfilling the law of duty. " I came to fulfil." "Except 
your righteousness exceed." 5 : 17-20, 21-48 ; 6:1,4, 
6, 18, 21 ; 7: 14, 21, 24. 1 

1. If the sum of duty is love, if you are really made for 

love, and love is the law of your being, then love 
is life, and the requirements of duty are your life, 
not a limitation of life. (In religious terms, if God 
is really Father, then his commands are your life, 
not a limitation of life.) 2 

2. Hence not the transgression or evasion of the law of 

duty, nor the abrogation of the law of duty, but 
rather welcoming it, throwing oneself with all 
one's heart into the completest fulfillment of the 
law of duty, brings real life. Following to the 
utmost every hint of the law of duty (the will of 
God). 

3. But if the sum of duty is love, that completest fulfill- 

ment will be, not in multiplying external observ- 
ances (cf. the " hedge of the law "), but in the 
complete reign of love in the inner spirit, — a new 
spirit. (" Out of the heart.") This is the keep- 
ing of the law ; this, filling it full? 

4. And if men are made for love, if love is life, this com- 

plete reign of love in the inner spirit, out of which 
all true manifestations of love will grow, is seen to 
be no alien reign, but a very source of life, and the 

1 Cf . Dale, Laws of Christ for Common Life, pp. 208 ff. 

2 Cf. Wendt, The Teaching offesus, vol. I, p. 314. 

3 Cf. Herrmann, Faith and Morals, p. 384 : " All the require- 
ments uttered in the 5th chapter of Matthew can be fulfilled only 
by a man who imposes them upon himself." 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 257 

sense of bondage to law is gone, and freedom 
comes in. 1 
5. This principle, thus, urges a dead-in-earnest radical- 
ism in a genuine love (cf. 5 : 20) (implying vigilant 
watchfulness, and the sacrifice of relative goods). 
IV. «Thy brothers 5:22, 23, 24, 44, 47 ; 7:3, 4, 5? I2 - 
This motive means three things : 2 — 

1. The lives of men are indissolubly knit up together — 

" members one of another " — inevitably, desirably, 
indispensably. For your own life's sake, you can- 
not spare the relation to your brother. 

2. The other man is very like us — in all the great es- 

sentials of nature, in cherishing some ideals, with 
like limitations, and temptations, and struggles. 
You who desire love, cannot reasonably withhold 
your love from this other, so like you. 

3. The other man has like us a personality, — sacred 

and infinitely valuable (a child of God), worthy of 
patient, long-suffering, self-sacrificing love. 8 

These four great motives in living are more or Jesus' use 
less explicitly applied by Jesus in the illustrations 
in the 5th chapter, as helps against hate, impurity, in the 
falsity, and the spirit of retaliation (5 : 21-42). In fjJ^^ tions 
the treatment of these motives as reasons for a life in chapter 5. 
of positive love, we have already seen how Jesus 
would deal with the spirit of hate. But we may 
well follow a little more closely his line of thought 
in his further illustrations. 

As against impurity, the motives of the unity 

1 Cf. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, p. 147: Christ as 
the restorer of the play spirit. 

2 Cf. Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, vol. I, pp. 325 ff.; Ecce 
Homo, pp. 139 ff., 153, 154, 169 ff., 174. 

8 Cf. Harnack, What is Christianity ?, pp. 67-68. 



of the four 
great motives 



258 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The motives 

against 

impurity. 

The motives 
of unity 
and fulfill- 
ment. 



A funda- 
mental sin. 



The subtle- 
ness of the 
temptation 
to impurity. 



of life and of Jesus' thought of the inner fulfilling 
of the law, mean that sin is in the inner consent, 
in any case, and works out on the rest of the life 
from that, so that the life may be absolutely foul 
with impurity at its source, though there is not at 
present any overt act (v. 28). And these mental 
states certainly and promptly affect bodily states, 
and tend to diffuse themselves through the whole 
nature of the man, and so weaken him for every 
fight for righteousness. A man cannot throw 
his whole self into the struggle anywhere else 
(vv. 29-30). 

Moreover, the sin of impurity so affects the very 
foundation of society, of which the family is the 
real unit, and so involves the violation of the most 
intimate possible relation of life, — of the sacred- 
ness of the person, that this sin is peculiarly fatal 
in its effect on the rest of the man. It spoils the 
whole man ; the rest of his life rings hollow. What 
violation is not possible to one who willingly trans- 
gresses here ? (v. 32). No price is too great to pay 
for deliverance at this point (vv. 29-30). 

None of us are likely to be too sensitive as to 
this fundamental reverence which underlies purity. 
That reverence for the person which is involved in 
steadfast, thoroughgoing purity, counts as do few 
other qualities, for it is the deepest condition of 
fine personal relations (cf . 7 : 1-6), and the best 
defense against the most subtle temptations, — the 
most subtle, because connected so closely with the 
deepest and best in us. 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 259 

The deliverance from impurity, thus, must be inner 
inner absolutely. Mere asceticism and a simply dehverance - 
negative fighting will not conquer it ; only a higher 
love can conquer the lower, — only such a sense of 
the sacredness of the personality as makes this sin 
intolerable even in thought. 

The motive of God as Father has here, too, its The motive 
application. For a man who really believes that p ath ° r as 
God is Father will respect his will in the laws 
of his being, will believe in the love of God in 
these very laws, and will therefore fulfill them, 
not grudgingly, but earnestly. And his sense of 
God's reverence for his personality can hardly help 
prompting to a similar reverence for others. He 
will therefore avoid not only the gross, overt act, 
but every violation of the inner sanctities of an- 
other's life. And into the highest love of another, 
a love that is taken on in the thought and the love 
of God, there enter a thousand heightening ele- 
ments that have no place in mere passion, that are 
not possible to it. Underneath such a love lies 
faith in the love of God himself, as the sure foun- 
dation that enables even this love between these 
finite personalities to take hold on the eternities. 
Such faith in God, too, brings the hope that may 
look to the life of endless love,, and may believe in 
its own love as one that God can bless at every 
step, for it is a part of the love of God himself. 

And against impurity, too, the other motive of The motive 
the thought of men as brothers also serves. For ^oThe^ 
just so soon as one recognizes the priceless value 



260 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Jesus' use 
of the four 
great motives 
against 
falsity. 



The motive 
of unity. 



and sacredness of the other personality, — that he 
is like himself, he cannot bear to treat him as a 
thing ; for he knows that that is only to help to 
doom a soul of infinite possibilities and just like 
himself to infamy, inner and outer, earthly and 
ageless. No man can really think what that means 
and find it a pleasant reflection. Moreover, every 
blow at the purity of another is just as real a blow 
at oneself. For here too, as everywhere, one can- 
not treat another as a slave and not become himself 
a slave. We are bound up indissolubly together, 
and that measure that we mete to another is in- 
evitably measured unto us. 

And the same four great motives are available 
against falsity (5 : 33-37). When Jesus concludes 
this brief section in the 37th verse, " But let your 
speech be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : and whatsoever is 
more than these is of the evil one," he is distinctly 
stating the principle of the unity of the inner life. 
For he is virtually saying, You cannot safely tam- 
per with the simple, straight, genuine truth ; there 
is danger in anything else. And the principle 
means, also, that falsity in speech threatens the 
rest of the life as well. One cannot be false in 
one thing and leave the rest unaffected. False 
speaking in one realm leads to false speaking else- 
where, and to false dealing everywhere. The man 
who plays you false at one point you can hardly 
entirely trust anywhere else. A lie, Jesus is in- 
sisting, is serious business, whether told or acted, 
whether expressed or ingeniously insinuated. And 



of fulfillment. 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 26 1 

the principle means, also, that falsity is its own 
curse, brings its inevitable reward. One cannot 
play fast and loose with his own sense of truth, 
and not find himself finally unable to tell the 
truth, unable to make himself understood. The 
habit of diplomatic speech is disintegrating. Sus- 
picion of others inevitably follows, and hollowness 
of one's own life, which carries with it the certain 
reward of lack of trust from others. 

And Jesus' thought of fulfillment, as applied to The motive 
the sin of falsity, is an insistence that here, too, 
one must go back to the inner spirit. You cannot 
cure falsity by requiring the oath (vv. 34-36). 
Rather one must cultivate a spirit that needs and 
takes no recourse to the oath. When Jesus says, 
"Swear not at all" (v. 34), he is simply following 
out his principle of the inner fulfilling of the law, 
not laying down some new external command. 
To conceive the command as external is quite to 
misunderstand him, and even to reverse the spirit 
of his teaching. In effect he says to those who 
would follow him, You must be such true men at the 
very heart as to carry naturally the faith of men, 
and to need no recourse to oath ; and least of all, 
to use it to cover trickery. Thinking the truth, 
seeing things just as they are, candor, freedom 
from all prejudice and willfulness and from all 
treachery and deceitfulness, these lie back of all 
telling the truth. There must be such simplicity 
and transparency of character as shall reflect itself 
naturally in simplicity and transparency of speech, 



262 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

in the "Yea, yea," and the "Nay, nay" (v. 37). 
The truth, therefore, cannot be gotten from an- 
other by any external contrivance of the oath. 
You cannot get truth where truth is not. Not 
the oath, but only the true heart that hates a lie, 
said or lived, in big or little, that hates all trickery 
and deceit, all playing with honesty, brings real 
deliverance from the sin of falsity. As against 
the sin of falsity, the motive of the fulfilling of 
the law drives one back to the sense of the neces- 
sity of an absolutely honest, transparent soul, that 
hates sham and prejudice, and all coming short of 
truth and honesty. 
The motive And the thought of the other man as your brother 
brings, also, a motive against falsity. All falsity, 
or dishonesty, all lack of truthfulness, is a sin 
against your brother, a sin against love. For no sin 
is greater than treachery. The one thing a friend- 
ship cannot stand is falseness ; for friendship has 
so no possible basis. For all friendship and all 
society are and must be built on trust. If one is 
not truthful, therefore, not trustworthy, he is doing 
something to undermine the very foundations of 
society. 

Moreover, the attitude of untruthfulness, of fal- 
sity, is absolutely self-contradictory. For every 
man wants faithful dealing from God and from all 
others ; he must give the same. And the thought 
that, because the other man is your brother, he is 
like you, means that you may therefore know 
that what you need and require from him, he rightly 



of men as 
brothers 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 263 

needs and requires from you. You may, not, there- 
fore, deny him what you must have from him. 

And as a child of God, a person of infinite possi- 
bilities, he deserves from you the truth, nothing 
less. 

So, too, the thought of God as Father becomes The motive 
a powerful motive to truthfulness. The oath is p ath ° r as 
supposed to appeal especially to him, but he is 
always a God at hand, in every man ; every given 
word is in his presence, as really as is the form of 
oath, and just as binding (vv. 34-36). And as 
Father, this law of truthfulness, which he has made 
a law of your being, is a law of life, and you may 
not evade it without suffering in your own life. 
And as, in your relation to the Father, you have to 
do with a " faithful Creator," you must be in like 
manner faithful in relation to others. That which 
you seek from God, you must not less certainly 
give to your brother. 

And these four great motives have their applica- The use of 
tion, once more, as against the spirit of retaliation gr e a t°motives 
(5 : 38-42). The desire for retaliation is, of course, against re- 
only an outworking of the spirit of hate, a violation 
of the fundamental law of love, and therefore vir- 
tually involved in what has already been said. 

But Jesus' application at this point is inevitable. The motive 
Where the disciple of the older law might have of umty * 
regarded himself as virtuous in restricting his re- 
taliation to retaliation in kind, — "an eye for an 
eye, a tooth for a tooth," Jesus insists that there 
is no victory in this realm except by an absolute 



264 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



The motive 
of fulfill- 
ment. 



The motive 
of men as 
brothers. 



replacing of the entire spirit of retaliation by a 
spirit of abounding love. For, if love is life, and 
hate is death, then any cherishing of the spirit of 
retaliation must work sure consequences of evil in 
oneself. 

And the victory over this spirit must come 
through that inner fulfillment of the requirement 
of righteousness upon which Jesus is insisting 
throughout this chapter. It means, as his illustra- 
tions in verses 39-42 show, that one must be will- 
ing to carry the opposite spirit, of a loving service, 
far beyond what the other in' hate would demand. 
Out of a spirit of love, Jesus is suggesting, you 
will do all that the selfish hate of the other could 
require, and more. Your desire to serve will 
outrun his selfish demand. You will be ready to 
turn the other cheek, to let him have the coat, to 
go the two miles, to lend. Here, once again, Jesus 
is giving no external, infallible rules, but illus- 
trations of that thoroughgoing inner spirit which 
alone may bring deliverance from the spirit of 
retaliation, because it is a true fulfillment of the law 
of love. 

The motive involved in the thought of the other 
man as your brother brings the same result. Let 
one think, for example, of the treatment that a 
true father or mother gladly gives to an unworthy 
son, who has justly forfeited all loving service, 
and yet in a spirit of arrogant selfishness demands 
certain things from the father or mother. How 
certainly will the answer of the grieving, loving 



THE GREAT MOTIVES TO LIVING 265 

father or mother be exactly in the line of Jesus' 
illustrations : " Why, my son, it is a small thing 
that you ask. Have you any doubt that there is 
nothing within my power that I would not gladly 
do, if it would be of any real good to you ? " It is 
only love at its best and highest that can properly 
understand and estimate these words of Jesus here. 1 

And so, in like manner, the thought of God as The motive 
Father can hardly fail to drive out the unforgiving " f ^°^ as 
and retaliatory spirit. There can be no true filial 
relation to God, no sharing in his life of forgiv- 
ing and serving love, where the unforgiving and 
retaliatory spirit still abides. This is Jesus' ex- 
press insistence in his injunction, " first be rec- 
onciled to thy brother " (5 : 23-24), and in the 
comment on the forgiving of men's trespasses 
(6: 14-15). The inevitable logic of this motive of 
God as Father comes out at once, as soon as one 
tries to transfer the spirit of retaliation to God. 
If God is Father, and his life is the life of forgiv- 
ing and serving love, then love is life, and hate is 
death, and one can only love even enemies and 
persecutors (v. 44) ; so alone can he share the life 
of God (v. 45); so alone can he aim at a spirit and 
life like his (v. 48). To take a less standard than 
this is to be satisfied with the most ordinary and 
conventional attainment (vv. 46-47). 

1 Cf. Votaw, art. " Sermon on the Mount," H. D. B., extra vol- 
ume, p. 30 : The guiding principle here is that " love knows no 
limits but those which love itself imposes." See also Rauschenbusch, 
Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 68. 



266 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

So Jesus uses these great motives in the Sermon, 
and thus suggests their use in all of life. They 
indicate for him the source of moral motive. The 
fact that they all root in faith in God as Father 
shows how inevitably for Jesus the ethical life 
builds on the religious, and suggests that, in his 
own thought, his service to men is not merely 
pointing out these motives, but because of the 
greatness of his spirit, enabling us to believe them 
— enabling us to believe that God is Father, that 
there is love at the heart of the world. 1 

1 Cf. Herrmann, Communion of the Christian with God (1895), 
p. no; Weiss, art. "Ethics," D. C. G., p. 547. 



CHAPTER VIII 
CONCLUSION. 

As we turn, now, to a summary of the results The Sermon 
of our entire survey of the ethical teaching of Mount 
Jesus, we can hardly fail to be impressed with the itself a 
fact that the Sermon on the Mount is itself a kind of 1 -?™^ 
of summary of all that is most significant and es- teaching, 
sential in Jesus' entire teaching. Doubtless it was 
so in the mind of Matthew, and it is certainly so in 
fact. 1 For our study of the Sermon on the Mount 
must have made it plain that there are to be found 
here the great central conceptions of Jesus as to 
God, as to men, as to life. Here are set forth in 
unmistakable terms the life of love toward God 
and men, and all that that love involves. 

How truly the Sermon on the Mount is such a Evidenced 
summary, has perhaps already been sufficiently ^^ p d r 5" 
shown in those main propositions of the Sermon cussion. 
which we have called the spiritual discoveries of 
Jesus; in the comprehensive unity of the character- 
ization of the ideal life in the Beatitudes, as giving 
the basic qualities of character, and influence, and 
happiness, — the very elements of love itself, the 
necessary conditions of the friendly life every- 

1 Cf. Bartlet, "Teaching of Jesus," D. C. G., p. 701; D'Arcy, 
" Leading Ideas," D. C. G., p. 770. 

267 



268 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Contains 
the ethical 
notes of 
Schmiedel's 
passages. 



Contains 

the ethical 
laws of the 
doubly 
attested 
sayings. 



In harmony 
with Q. 



where and in every age ; and in the setting forth 
of the great motives for living involved in this 
teaching. 

And when we look back over the divisions of 
our inquiry, it is equally manifest that here, in the 
Sermon on the Mount, is found a true summary 
of all the ethical teaching. All the notes of 
Schmiedel's passages come out in this Sermon : 
the demand for a life that shall be characterized 
by earnestness, absolute genuineness, inwardness, 
and independence, and reverence for the person; 
the sense of religion as through and through ethi- 
cal, of the contrast of his teaching with that of his 
times ; and in Jesus himself the impression of com- 
passion and authority. 

And here, too, it may be said, that there is 
hardly lacking any one of the laws of life brought 
out in the doubly attested sayings : the clear view 
of the supremacy of love as universal, as serving, 
and sacrificial ; the fundamental faith in love at 
the heart of the world; the laws of use, habit, 
efficiency, vigilant watchfulness, the contagion of 
the good, and of reverence for the person, with the 
recognition of the supreme value of the qualities of 
childhood, and the demand for forgiveness. 

Moreover, the Sermon itself constitutes no small 
part of Q — 58 out of 201 verses, and the rest of 
Q is completely in harmony with this portion. 
Harnack's concluding estimate of Q may be taken 
as confirmatory of this judgment i 1 " The collection 

1 The Sayings of Jesus, pp. 250-251. 



CONCLUSION 269 

of sayings and St. Mark must remain in power, 
but the former takes precedence. Above all, 
the tendency to exaggerate the apocalyptic and 
eschatological element in our Lord's message, 
and to subordinate to this the purely religious 
and ethical elements, will ever find its refuta- 
tion in Q. This source is the authority for that 
which formed the central theme of the message 
of our Lord — that is, the revelation of the knowl- 
edge of God, and the moral call to repent and to 
believe, to renounce the world and to gain heaven 
— this and nothing else." 

And when one compares the teaching of the Ser- in harmony 
mon on the Mount with Mark, with his thought of 7 ith , the . 

' ° teaching in 

Jesus' message, method, motive, goal, and the revolu- Mark, and 
tionary contrast of his teaching, his emphasis on the teachTna irT 
great paradox and the great commandment and the Matthew 
social applications of this commandment of love, one an u e 
must say, once again, that there is very little here 
that is not repeated in some form in this Sermon. 
And practically the same thing may be added as to 
the peculiar teaching in both Matthew and Luke. 

Our survey sufficiently makes clear that Jesus' No technical 
teaching is not put before us in the form of a system - 
technically constructed system. On the contrary, 
there is an apparent lack of all system, and what 
we seem to have is a collection of miscellaneous 
sayings called out on various occasions. In 
speaking upon the moral and religious life, Jesus 
does not speak like an amateur, who must be 
punctiliously careful to put things always in the 



270 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Yet a 

thorough- 
going unity 
in Jesus' 
teaching. 



same way, for fear he may get off the line of 
his exact meaning; but he speaks rather like a 
master, who can be careless of form and system, 
because he knows that true insights cannot help 
fitting one another. 

Nevertheless, no earnest student of the teach- 
ing of Jesus can fail to see that there is in that 
teaching, in point of fact, a marvelously thorough- 
going unity. 1 And in fact it is not too much to say 
upon this, in the first place, that Jesus' entire ethi- 
cal and religious teaching springs from one single 
thought, his faith in God as Father. All that he 
teaches may be said, thus, to be a direct reflection 
of his own filial consciousness. This faith in God 
as Father, this unshakable conviction that there 
is love at the heart of the world, and that the 
universe is on the side of the righteous will, 
this is not merely a religious faith, as we have 
seen, but the great fundamental moral conviction 
which is necessary to an earnest and hopeful 
moral life. In the words of Muirhead, summing 
up the central problem of the recent International 
Congress on Moral Education, " 'A man's confi- 
dence in himself,' said Hegel, 'is much the same 
as his confidence in the universe and in God.' 
What is true of the individual is true of humanity. 
Without such confidence, it is difficult to see with 
what ultimate convincingness appeal can be made 
to the ideals of humanity." 2 This thought of God 

1 Cf. e.g., Wendt's summary, The Teaching of Jesus, vol. II, pp. 
384 ff. 2 Hibbert Journal, January, 1909, p. 351. 



CONCLUSION 271 

as Father, this conviction of love at the heart of 
the world, Jesus simply carries through to its full 
logical consequences for every sphere of life. 1 
And all the rest of his teaching may be regarded 
as simply the detailed statement and application 
of these logical consequences. 

From this primary conviction there directly fol- inferences 
lows, thus, (1) that love is the highest life, the thoughTof 
sum and end of all true living, and that this love, God as 
like God's, must be not partial but for all, worthy 
and unworthy alike ; that it must be a love willing 
to serve and willing to sacrifice, and a love always 
forgiving. From this same premise follows not 
less certainly that the basic qualities for character, 
and influence, and happiness, will be the elements 
which make up the true love. And out of this 
same conviction of God as Father we have seen fol- 
low inevitably the great motives to living. Jesus' 
thought of God as in his very nature Father, as 
love, means, too, (2) that the highest possible good 
is the reign of God, the dominion of love in both 
the individual, and the social life ; and (3) that 
every man is a child of God, of infinite value,- 
always to be reverenced as such, to be treated, 
therefore, as end and never as means. It follows 
not less certainly, if the all-inclusive virtue is love, 
(4) that righteousness must be inner, must spring 
from within, and can never be simply laid on from 

1 Cf. Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, vol. I, pp. 184 ff., 197, 199, 
2 97 ff->3 2 9 ff-> 337 5 vol. II, pp. 48 ff.; Auguste Sabatier, Outlines 
of a Philosophy of Religion, pp. 152 ff. 



hood. 



272 THE ETHICS OF JESUS 

without; and (5) that, therefore, every man must 
have an independent moral and spiritual life of 
his own. (6) Just because, also, the command of 
duty is the command of love, freedom is brought 
into the ethical life. 
Jesus holds (7) It is to be noticed particularly that Jesus 
mentafview ^ r ^ n S s out tne logical con sequences of this thought 
of father- of God as Father in no sentimental fashion. He 
does not make the mistake of some of the most 
recent critics of his teaching, in forgetting that 
every deep truth, just because it has a fundamen- 
tally gracious side, has just as inevitably a reverse 
side. Jesus never forgets that, just because God 
is Father, men may take toward him the attitude 
either of obedient or disobedient sons ; that, just 
because the real essence of life is love, the life 
that is selfish and hateful must find itself at war 
with itself, and with the whole universe of God. 
Jesus, just because he conceives God as true Fa- 
ther, knows that sin is a more awful thing to the 
Father than it can possibly be to judge or legis- 
lator. 1 Just because life, in Jesus' thought, opens 
to man the possibility of boundless achievement 
and joy, there is borne home upon him also the 
awfulness of the loss of those who refuse to take 
on the filial spirit. Jesus feels profoundly the 
seriousness of life, and it is this that gives him 
that impressive earnestness that we have had to 
note again and again, and that comes out so clearly 

1 Cf. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 
444. 






CONCLUSION 273 

in the closing paragraphs of the Sermon on the 
Mount (7: 13-27). 1 

(8) It is this same conviction of God as Father The chiid- 
which leads to the emphasis of Jesus on the child- llke <i uallties - 
like qualities of humble teachableness and trust as 
the very gateway into his Kingdom, as well as to 
his repeated emphasis on repentance and faith. 
For as soon as one thinks of the possibility of 
coming into a relation to a great personality, trust 
must be seen at once to be absolutely basic. No 
personal relation, human or divine, can go forward 
except upon the basis of mutual self -revelation and 
answering trust. And if one is to come into the 
sharing of the life of God, there must be, beyond 
doubt, the willingness to take on a life like God's, 
to get the new mind which is in Jesus' idea of re- 
pentance. 

One may put the matter slightly differently in Another 
saying that, in Jesus' thought, (1) the basic convic- ^ ° o f f the 
tion is that of love at the heart of the world ; Jesus' 
(2) that the goal, therefore, of all life is the estab- teachin s- 
lishment of loving relations between all personali- 
ties ; (3) that the basic qualities of life for character, 
influence, and happiness will be those qualities of 
character that are essential elements of love ; 
(4) that, if there is love at the heart of the world, 
we may trust our own natures, and our final moral 
evidence must be the appeal to our own reason 
and conscience, to our own best vision ; (5) that 
the great motives to righteous living must be those 

1 Cf. Ecce Homo, pp. 299, 351. 
T 



274 



THE ETHICS OF JESUS 



Has Jesus 
an ethical 
system ? 



His con- 
ception, of 
the highest 
good. 



His concep- 
tion of duty. 



that grow immediately out of the fundamental con- 
viction of love at the heart of the world ; and (6) 
that the chief means in both individual and social 
upbuilding must be obedience to these subsidiary 
laws of life which, under various circumstances love 
demands, and which human experience confirms. 

If the inquiry is finally raised whether Jesus has 
an ethical system, this would mean, Does he face 
explicitly (i) the question of the highest good or 
wellbeing of men, including both virtue and pleas- 
ure ; (2) the question of duty or right conduct, or 
of the moral law; (3) the question of the faculty 
of the moral life, conscience ; (4) the question of 
the necessary presupposition of the moral life, 
free will ? 

In answer to this inquiry, it must be said that, 
while Jesus probably never puts these questions 
to himself in this form, he plainly does conceive 
as the highest good of men, involving the full play 
of all the activities of the entire man, the Kingdom 
of God, the reign of love in the life of the indi- 
vidual and of society, the possibility open, thus, to 
men of sharing in the eternal, ongoing purposes 
of God. It becomes most natural, therefore, that 
the central petition of the prayer that was to char- 
acterize his disciples should be, " Thy will be done, 
as in heaven, so on earth." 

In the second place, duty, or right conduct, obedi- 
ence to the moral law, for Jesus, as we have seen, 
is summed up in the one great all-inclusive virtue 
of a love such as he conceives in the Father, and 



CONCLUSION 275 

such as he himself revealed in his own life, — a 
forgiving, serving, self-sacrificing love. 1 

As to the question of the moral faculty, conscience, Assumes 
it is only to be said that, in all his insistence upon conscience - 
the independence and inwardness of the moral 
life, and in his own direct appeal to men, Jesus 
only assumes, but nowhere discusses, conscience, 2 
as the sense of moral obligation and as rational 
judgment concerning conduct. 

And his emphasis upon the seriousness of life, Assumes 
as well as his explicit teaching, makes not less clear ^° ^[ ° nitia „ 
that he assumes everywhere, on the part of men, tive in men. 
power of moral initiative, power to choose the life 
of love or the life of selfishness. 

An ethical system, then, in the sense of a mod- Conclusion, 
ern, ordered discussion of technical theoretical 
problems, Jesus certainly does not have. But an 
ethical system, in the sense of thoroughly unified 
and consistent thinking on life, its end, spirit, 
motives, and means, he as certainly does have. 
And all this is put with marvelous practical incen- 
tive to living. 

1 Cf. Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, pp. 109 ff.; 
art. "Righteousness in the New Testament," H. D. B., p. 283; 
Vtzbo&y, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character,^. i2off., 196 ff.; 
Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 69 ff . ; von Schrenck, Jesus 
and His Teaching,^. 118, 123; Schmidt, The Prophet of Nazareth, 
pp. 311 ff.; Harnack, What is Christianity ? , pp. 70 ff.; Wendt, The 
Teaching of Jesus, vol. I, pp. 335 ff.; Patterson DuBois, The Culture 
of Justice, pp. 61, 83-85: "Justice is methodized love"; Harris, 
Moral Evolution, pp. 237-238 : " the perfect and final type "; and 
many others. 

2 Cf. Kilpatrick, art. " Conscience," H. D. B., p. 468. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

See Votaw's carefully annotated list of books " for New Testa- 
ment study," Biblical World, October, 1905 ; and the bibliographies 
in the Bible dictionaries and religious encyclopaedias. 

I. General Works on Ethics. 

The general works on ethics usually have some dis- 
cussion of Christian ethics, in certain of its aspects : 
Paulsen, Wundt, Lotze, Green, Sidgwick, Stephen, Alex- 
ander, Dewey and Tufts, Palmer, Bowne, Mezes, Harris 
(Moral Evolution), DuBois (The Culture of Justice), 
Addams (Newer Ideals of Peace), Williams (A Review 
of Evolutional Ethics), Post (Ethics of Democracy), 
Raahdall (Theory of Good and Evil), etc. 

II. Works on Christian or Theological Ethics. 

The older discussions here are rather a priori ; the later 
discussions much more inductive. Martensen, Wuttke, 
Schleiermacher, Rothe, Dorner, H. Weiss, Harless, Hof- 
mann, Frank, Luthardt, Beck, Kubel, Kahler, Pfleiderer, 
Schultz, Krarup, Kostlin, Herrmann (Ethik, Faith and 
Morals, Communion of the Christian with God), Thoma, 
Jacoby, T. B. Strong, Knight, Smyth, Ottley, W. L. 
Davidson, Mackintosh, Murray, Maurice (Social Morality), 
Nash (Ethics and Revelation), Dobschutz (Christian Life 
in the Primitive Church), Clark (The Christian Method 
of Ethics), Mathews (The Church and the Changing 
Order), Fremantle (The World as the Subject of Redemp- 
277 



278 BIBLIOGRAPHY 



tion, and the Gospel of the Secular Life), Drummond 
(The Ideal Life), Gladden (Applied Christianity, and The 
Church and Modern Life), Leckie (Life and Religion), 
J. Smith (Christian Character as a Social Power), Rau- 
schenbusch (Christianity and the Social Crisis), R. J. 
Campbell (Christianity and the Social Order) , Peile (The 
Reproach of the Gospel), The Gospel for the Nineteenth 
Century, Coe (Education in Religion and Morals), 
Haering (The Ethics of the Christian Life). See also 
Review of Theology and Philosophy, " Survey of Recent 
Literature on Christian Ethics," January, 1909. 

III. Works on New Testament Theology. 

These, of course, include full sections on the teachings 
of Jesus : Weiss, H. J. Holtzmann, Beyschlag, Harnack 
(What is Christianity?), Stevens, Wernle (The Beginnings 
of Christianity), Adeney, Gould, Gardner (Exploratio 
Evangelica), Bosworth (The Teaching of Jesus and the 
Apostles), Mathews (The Messianic Hope in the New 
Testament), Briggs (The Messiah of the Gospels). 

IV. Works on the Life of Christ. 

These, of course, involve much reference to the teach- 
ing : Keim, Weiss, O. Holtzmann, Beyschlag, Reville, 
Seeley (EcceHomo), Sanday, Edersheim, Farrar, Geikie, 
Broadus, Wernle, Weinel, Schmidt (The Prophet of 
Nazareth), Bousset, Fairbairn (Studies in the Life of 
Christ), Smith (The Days of His Flesh), Rhees, Gilbert, 
Dawson, Abbott (Philochristus), Briggs (New Light on 
the Life of Christ), Matheson (Studies in the Portrait of 
Christ), Bennett (The Life of Christ According to St. 
Mark), Garvie (Studies in the Inner Life of Jesus), H. J. 
Holtzmann (Das Messianische Bewusstsein Jesu), Parkin 



* 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 

(The New Testament Portrait of Jesus), Selbie (The Life 
and Teaching of Jesus Christ), Forrest (The Christ of 
History and of Experience). 

V. Works on the Teaching of Jesus. 

Wendt (The Teaching of Jesus), Bruce (The Kingdom 
of God, The Training of the Twelve, The Parabolic Teach- 
ing of Christ, With Open Face), Stevens, Gilbert (The 
Revelation of Jesus), Horton, Jackson, Swete, Latham 
(Pastor Pastorum), Walker, Moorhouse, von Schrenck 
(Jesus and His Teaching), Brooks (The Influence of 
Jesus), Tolstoy (My Religion), Pullan, Ross, Contentio 
Veritatis (has one essay on The Teaching of Christ), 
Muirhead (The Eschatology of Jesus), Goebel (The 
Parables of Jesus), Julicher (Die Gleichnisreden Jesu), 
Dods (The Parables of Our Lord), Harnack (The Sayings 
of Jesus), The Creed of Christ. For the extensive and 
important literature on the Sermon on the Mount, see 
Vo taw's article in the extra volume of Hastings' Dictionary 
of the Bible. 

VI. Works on the Ethics of Jesus. 

The inductive study of the ethics of Jesus, and indeed 
of Christian ethics is, as Professor Peabody remarks (Jesus 
Christ and the Christian Character, pp. 21, 23, 26), a 
comparatively recent study, and the specific literature 
covering the whole field is not large. 

Briggs (The Ethical Teaching of Jesus) , Peabody (Jesus 
Christ and the Christian Character, Jesus Christ and the 
Social Question), Stalker (Imago Christi, and The Ethics 
of Jesus [announced]), Herrmann (Ethik, Faith and 
Morals, Die sittlichen Weisungen Jesu : Ihr richtiger und 
ihr falscher Gebrauch), A. Rau (Die Ethik Jesu), E. 



280 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Grimm (Die Ethik Jesu), Ehrhardt (Der Grundcharakter 
der Ethik Jesu, im Verhaltniss zu den Messianischen 
Hoffnungen seines Volkes und zu seinem eigenen Messi- 
anbewusstsein), Seeley (Ecce Homo, pp. 118 ff.), Brooks 
(The Influence of Jesus, lectures i and 2), F. P. Cobbe 
(Studies New and Old, chapter on " Christian Ethics and 
the Ethics of Christ "), Feddersen (Jesus und die sozialen 
Dinge), Mathews (The Social Teaching of Jesus), Heuver 
(The Teachings of Jesus concerning Wealth), Horton 
(Commandments of Jesus), Dale (Laws of Christ for 
Common Life), Gardner (Exploratio Evangelica, has 
special chapter on "The Ethics of Jesus," pp. 193 ff.). 

Some of the most valuable material on the ethics of 
Jesus is to be found in the special articles in the Bible 
dictionaries and religious encyclopaedias (Hastings' Dic- 
tionary of the Bible, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, 
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, The Encyclopaedia 
Biblica, the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious 
Knowledge, etc.), especially Hastings' Dictionary of the 
Bible, and the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. See 
index of the Dictionary of the Bible under " Jesus Christ, 
teaching of;" and the various articles on "Ethics," 
" Jesus Christ," " Sermon on the Mount," and " Lord's 
Prayer," in H. D. B., D. C. G., the Encyclopaedia Biblica, 
and the new Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, and note the 
many articles on various ethical topics, especially in the 
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, and in the Dictionary 
of Christ and the Gospels, such as "Asceticism," 
"Almsgiving," "Brotherhood," "Care," "Conscience," 
"Common Life," "Commandments," "Forgiveness," 
"Friendship," "Ideal," "Love," "Meekness," "Per- 
sonality," "Purity," "Righteousness," "Self-denial," 
"Truth," etc. 






INDEX 



Abbott, E. A., 58, 78, 120. 
Accommodation, Willia, note, 50. 
Addams, Jane, note, 246 
Adeney, 194. 
Allen, note, 12, 68, 191, 192, 193; 

Analysis of Matthew, 145. 
Ambition, 134. 
American Journal of Theology, 

note, 78, 91, 197. 
Apologetic, in New Testament, 

"Apostles," Patrick, note, 49. 
Asceticism, note, 66; 101, 139. 
Augustine, note, 242. 

Background of the Gospels, The, 

Fairweather, note, 63 . 
Bacon, note, 9, 10, 12, 62, 88, 91, 

194. 
Ballantine, 61. 
Bampton Lectures, The Reproach 

of the Gospel, 4. 
Bartlet, note, 50, 63, 267. 
Basic qualities, 204-231. 
Beatitudes, 204-231 ; as a progress, 

213. 
Bebb, note, 152. 
Beecher, 209. 

Bennett, note, 41, 58, 63, 120. 
Bethune-Baker, 99. 
Beyschlag, note, 79, 255. 
Biblical Theology of the New 

Testament, The, Gould, note, 

243- 
Biblical World, note, 62. 
Bibliography, 277-280. 
Bosworth, note, 186. 
Bousset, note, 49, 62, 201. 
Bowne, note, 50. 
Boys-Smith, note, 211. 



Briggs, note, 36, 51, 66, 78. 
Brooke, S. A., note, 136. 
Brooks, note, 134, 201. 
Brotherhood, 244, 257, 259, 264. 
Browning, 128, 252. 
Bruce, 51, 79, 95, 106, 119, 255. 
Burkitt, F. C, 1, 8, 12, 13, 14, 29, 

51, 52-54; 56, 63,93, ML 

Burton, note, 68. 
Bushnell, note, 20, 201. 

Cambridge Theological Essays, 

note, 31. 
Carpenter, J. E., 197. 
Catholicism, 81. 
Character, 204, 230. 
Character of Christ, The, Kil- 

patrick, note, 49, 50. 
Character of Jesus, The, Jefferson, 

note, 20. 
Child, the, 135; emancipation of, 

136; qualities of, 143, 150. 
Christ, see Jesus; doctrine of the 

person of, 16. 
Christ of History and Experi- 
ence, The, Forrest, note, 50, 51. 
Christian Ethics, Martensen, note, 

37, 78. 
Christian Ethics, Strong, T. B., 

note, 201. 
Christian Life in the Primitive 

Church, Dobschutz, note, 66. 
Christian Method of Ethics, The, 

Clark, 80. 
Christianity and the Social Crisis, 

Rauschenbusch, note, 51, 138, 

142, 201, 265. 
Church and Modem Life, The, 

Gladden, note, 201, 242, 
Clark, 80. 

281 



282 



INDEX 



Clouston, note, 50. 

Coe, note, 257. 

Communion of the Christian with 

God, Herrmann, note, 266. 
Consequences, law of, 74. 
Contentio Veritatis, note, 17. 
Contagion of the good, 68, 76, 83. 
Covetousness, 174. 
Creed of Christ, The, note, 40, 50, 

73> *5*i 2 °°- 
Critical position, 9. 
Culture of Justice, The, Du Bois, 

note, 275. 

Dale, note, 50, 78, 256. 

D'Arcy, note, 267. 

Davidson, W. T., note, 38. 

Dewey, note, 78, 252. 

Dictionary of the Bible, Hastings, 
note, 9, 16, 43, 91, 99, 133, 152, 
191, 207, 275. 

Dictionary of Christ and the Gos- 
pels, Hastings, note, 2, 9, 10, 17, 
18, 49, 50, 62, 63, 66, 102, 127, 
147, 152, 194, 197, 209, 211, 
266, 267. 

"Divorce," Burton, on, note, 68. 

Dobschtitz, note, 66. 

Dods, note, 187. 

Dole, note, 5, 78. 

"Doubly Attested Sayings," 8, 13, 
14, 52-86, 114; form of, 55; 
fundamental laws of, 56; unity 
of, 83; compared, 188, 268. 

Drummond, 85, 202, 219. 

Du Bois, note, 275. 

Dudden, note, 66. 

Dunn, 81. 

Duty, 104, 122, 241, 256, 274. 

Eaton, note, 43. 

EcceHomo, note, 49, 50, 51, 78, 95, 

99, 108, 201, 255, 273. 
Education of Christ, The, Ramsay, 

note, 133. 
Education in Religion and Morals, 

Coe, note, 257. 
Efficiency, law of, 75, 82. 



Ehrhardt, note, 63. 
Eliot, George, 226. 
Encyclopedia Biblica, note, 147, 

148. 
"End Ethics," 4. 
Erskine, 167. 

Eschatological teaching, 20. 
Escliatology of Jesus, The, Muir- 

head, note, 62, 63; Jewish, 63. 
Ethik, Herrmann, 81. 
Ethical Teaching of Jesus, The, 

Briggs, note, 36, 51, 66, 78. 
Ethics and Revelation, Nash, note, 

So, 78. 
Ethics of the Christian Life, 

Haering, note, 79, 132, 253, 255. 
Exploratio Evangelica, Gardner, 

note, 32, 50, 134, 197. 
Expository Times, note, 9, n, 83. 

Facts of Moral Life, The, Wundt, 

note, 197. 
Fairbairn, note, 51, 91, 200, 272. 
Fairweather, note, 63. 
Faith and Morals, Herrmann, 

note, 36, 49, 50, 81, 123, 256. 
Faith, law of, 74; in men, 93; in 

God, 93. 
Falseness, 68, 260. 
Fasting, 116. 
Findlay, 209. 
Forgiveness, duty of, 100. 
"Forgiveness," Davidson, note, 

38; Bethune-Baker, note, 99. 
Forrest, note, 50. 
Foster, note, 44, 78. 
"Foundation-pillar" passages, 

Schmiedel, 8, 10, n, 13, 33-52; 

Sanday on, n. 
Freedom, a new, 242. 
Freedom of Faith, The, Munger, 

note, 20. 
Fremantle, note, 131. 
Future, The Teaching of Jesus 

about the, Sharman, note, 63. 

Gardner, note, 32, 50, 134, 197. 
Garvie, note, 9. 






INDEX 



283 



filbert, note, 17. 

Gladden, note, 201, 242. 

Gladstone, 187. 

Goal, laws of the, 77. 

God, holiness of, 37; as Father, 
77, 243, 249, 254, 259, 263, 271; 
as taskmaster, 165; sharing life 
of, 227. 

Good, triumph of the, 77; con- 
tagion of, 68, 229. 

Gore, note, 67, 242. 

Gospel and the Church, The, 
Loisy, note, 275. 

Gospel History and Its Transmis- 
sion, The, Burkett, note, 14, 15, 

2 9> 55>5 6 > 6 3> 79, I2 °, I21 - 
Gould, note, 65, 126, 243. 
Grace, parables of, 156. 
Growth, law of, 61, 74. 
Grundcharakter der Ethik Jesu, 

Der, Ehrhardt, note, 63. 

Habit, law of, 61, 74, 82. 
Haering, note, 79, 132, 253, 255. 
Handbook of Christian Ethics, 

Murray, note, 69, 78, 138, 201. 
Happiness, 204, 216 ff., 230. 
Harnack, note, 12, 29, 31, 41, 50, 

51, ss, 62, 65, 66, 81, 87, 88, 90, 

95. 1-°$, I33> *34, 19 1 , I 9 2 » J 94, 
197, 201, 255, 257, 268, 275. 

Harris, note, 50, 134, 275. 

Hastings, see under Dictionary of 
the Bible; Dictionary of Christ 
and the Gospels. 

Hawkins, 10, note, 55, 152, 155. 

Hegel, 270. 

Herrmann, 35, note, 36, 49, 50, 81, 
123, 256, 266. 

Hibbert Journal, 4, note, 64, 66, 
81, 127, 131, 137, 270. 

Hinton, 226. 

Historical New Testament, note, 
10. 

History of Early Christian Litera- 
ture, Von Soden, note 88. 

History of New Testament Times 
in Palestine, Mathews, note, 96. 



Holiness, 162. 

Holy Spirit, importance of, 37. 

Horae Synopticae, Hawkins, note, 
152. 

Horton, note, 3, 19. 

Humility, 214, 217. 

Hygiene of the Mind, The, Clous- 
ton, note, 50. 

Ideal Life, The, Drummond, note, 
85, 202. 

Imago Christi, Stalker, note, 20. 

Impurity, 258. 

Inferences, ethical, from "founda- 
tion-pillars," 46-52. 

Influence, 204, 228-231. 

Influence of Jesus, The, Brooks, 
note, 134, 201. 

Inner light, fidelity to, 79. 

Integrity of life, 76, 80. 

International Critical Commen- 
tary, see Matthew, Mark, Luke. 

Introduction to the New Testa- 
ment, Bacon, note, 88. 

Introduction to the New Testa- 
ment, An, Jiilicher, note, 12, 
88. 

Inwardness and independence of 
moral life, 73, 81, 83, 97. 

Jefferson, C. E., note, 20. 
Jerusalem, G. A. Smith, note, 63. 
Jesus and his Teaching, Von 

Schrenck, note, 275. 
Jesus, Bousset, note, 49, 62. 
Jesus Christ and the Christian 

Character, Peabody, note, 50, 66, 

73, 78, I3 1 , !97, 2 75- 
Jesus Christ and the Social Ques- 
tion, Peabody, note, 68, 133, 138, 

I39 ' 2 . 55- . 
Jesus, historicity and credibility of 

personality, 2; teaching of, 2; 

ethics of, criticised, 4 ; claims of, 

in Luke, 31 ; earnestness of, 35; 

character as a whole, 35 ; unique 

consciousness, 36, 49, 50, 51; 

as a worker of wonders, 40; 



284 



INDEX 



greatness of, 43; authority of, 
43, 48, 51; compassion of, 
44-45, 48, 51; ability to give 
rest, 46; earnestness of, 47; 
moral and spiritual independ- 
ence, 47 ; confidence in his own 
mission, 47; insight, 51; temp- 
tation of, 91; consciousness of 
power, mission, sonship, 91; 
message of, 114, 143; method 
of, 115, 143; purpose of, 115, 
143; consistency, 119; original- 
ity, 197 ff.; ethical system, 
274 rf. 

Jesus in Modem Criticism, 
Schmiedel, note, 10, 15, 32, 33, 
37, 39, 46. 

" Jesus or Christ," note, 4, 137. 

Jewish literature, influence of, 3. 

John, see Index of Biblical Refer- 
ences. 

Judgment, 146, 173. 

Julicher, note, 12, 88, 197. 

Kilpatrick, note, 49, 50, 275. 

King, note, 201. 

Kingdom of God, The, Bruce, 

note, 79, 95, 255. 
Kingdom of God, 62 ; growth of, 

63- 

Latham, note, 50. 

Law, in the spiritual world, 73; 

extension of, 240. 
Laws of Christ for Common Life, 

Dale, note, 50, 78, 256. 
Laws of Friendship, King, note, 

201. 
Lecky, 199. 
Lessing, note, 130. 
Life, laws of, in " Doubly Attested 

Sayings," 56, 65, 73-77; in 

Matthew, 149. 
Life of Christ According to St. 

Mark, Bennett, note, 41, 58, 63, 

120. 
Life of Christ in Recent Research, 

Sanday, note, 9, 12; note, 51. 



Life, values of, 105 ; paradox of, 
127; dwindling, 129; unity of, 
186. 

Literary Illustrations of the Bibe: 
St. Luke, Moffatt, note, 167. 

Literature, on ethics of Jesus, 1; 
Jewish, 3. 

Logia, note, 9, 10. 

Loisy, 12, note, 275. 

"Lord's Prayer," Nestie. note, 
62. 

Lotze, note, 120, 197, 198. 

Love, emphasis on, 30; as life, 31 ; 
supremacy of, 73; service of, 
79; seeking and forgiving, 99, 
173; life of God, 128; the great 
commandment of, 131, 144; 
goal of life, 149; in relations to 
others, 150, see also 156 ; of God, 
167; above institutions, 171; 
sum of all, 205; sacrificial, 215, 
226; the ultimate problem of 
living, 232 ff., 250, 255, 271. 

Luke, see Index of Biblical Refer- 
ences; outline of entire teaching 
in, 21-28; peculiar teaching in, 
152-190; ieePlummer. 

Macfadyen, note, 83. 
McGiffert, note, 197. 
Mackenzie, note, 17, 50. 
Manual of Ethics, Mackenzie, 

note, 17, 50. 
Mark, see Index of Biblical 

References; Gould on, 65, 126; 

ethical teaching of, 108-144; 

summary of teaching, 143. 
Marriage, 69, 137. 
Martensen, note, 37, 78. 
Martineau, 178. 
Matheson, note, 41, 156. 
Mathews, note, 51, 63, 65, 66, 69, 

96, 142, 255. 
Matthew, see Index of Biblical 

References; Allen on, 12, 68, 

147, 191; ethical teaching, 145- 

152; see H. B. D. 
Maurice, note, 131. 






INDEX 



285 



Meekness, 208, 218. 

Menzies, note, 10. 

Mercy, 146, 154, 210, 221. 

Messianic Hope in the New Testa- 
ment, The, Mathews, note, 51, 
63, 66. 

Microcosmus, Lotze, note, 197, 198. 

Miracle working of Jesus, 40. 

Moberly, 209. 

Moffatt, note, 10, 121, 167. 

Money, 185. 

Moral Evolution, Harris, note, 50, 
i34, 275. 

Muirhead, note, 62, 63, 270. 

Munger, note, 20. 

Murray, note, 69, 78, 138, 201. 

Mustard Seed, parable of, 62, 
142. 

Nash, note, 50, 78. 

Nestle, note, 62 ; 88. 

New Testament Theology, Bey- 

schlag, note, 79, 255. 
Newer Ideals of Peace, Addams, 

note, 246. 
Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, 

note, 242. 

Outlines of Ethics, Dewey, note, 
78. 

Outlines of a Philosophy of Reli- 
gion, Sabatier, note, 271. 

Palmer, 16. 

Parable, use of, 58, 63 ; of talents, 
106; of fig tree, 107; of sower, 
of light, of fruit-bearing earth, 
of mustard seed, 142; unfor- 
giving servant, laborers in the 
vineyard, two sons, ten virgins, 
146; of grace, 156, 187; two 
debtors, 158; Good Samaritan, 
159; lost sheep, lost coin, lost 
son, 161 ff. ; ethical teaching of 
Luke 15, 161; of rich fool, 174; 
of watchful servants, 175; bar- 
ren fig tree, 178; rash builder, 
rash king, 180; extra service, 



182; unrighteous steward, 183; 

Dives and Lazarus, 187; of 

warning, summary, 187. 
Parables of Our Lord, The, Dods, 

note, 187. 
Paradox of life, 127. 
Pastor Pastorum, Latham, note, 

5°- 
Patrick, note, 49. 
Paulus and Jesus, Julicher, note, 

197. 
Peabody, note, 50, 66, 68, 73, 78, 

106, 131, 133, 138, 139, 175, 197, 

255, 275- 
Peacemaker, 212, 215, 225. 
Peile, 4, note, 138, 139. 
Peirce, C. S., note, 64. 
Penitence, 214, 217. 
Personality of Jesus, historicity of, 

2. 
Pfleiderer, 164. 
Pharisees, teaching of, 42 ; Eaton 

on, 43 ; spirit of, 94; crisis with, 

120; literature on, 121. 
Philochristus, note, 50, 58, 120. 
Philosophy of Loyalty, The, Royce, 

note, 49. 
Place of Christ in Modern Theol- 
ogy, Fairbairn, 720^,91,200, 272. 
Plummer, 12, note, 152; 167, 183. 
Practical Philosophy, Lotze, note, 

120, 201. 
Principles of Ethics, The, Bowne, 

note, 50. 
Priority by service, law of, 71, 76, 

83, J 34- 
Prophet of Nazareth, The, 

Schmidt, note, 49, 130. 
Protestantism, 81. 
Proverb, 102, 127. 
Purity, 210, 223. 

"Q>" symbol for source-docu- 
ment, 9; reconstruction of, 10; 
Harnack on, n, 28; reference 
to, 14, 28, 54, 55 ; ethical teach- 
ing in, 87-108, 114, 129, 144, 
191, 192, 268. 



286 



Ramsay, 12, note, 133. 
Rauschenbusch, note, 51, 138, 142, 

201, 265. 
Religions of Authority and the 

Religion of the Spirit, Sabatier, 

note, 44. 
Religion, absolute, 31. 
Reproach of the Gospel, The, note, 

4, 138, 139. 
Resch, 10. 

Resurrection, Tolstoy, 157. 
Retaliation, 263, 265. 
Reverence for the person, 76, 83, 

223. 
Review of Evolutional Ethics, 

Williams, note, 68. 
Review of Theology and Philoso- 
phy, note, 10, 63, 121. 
Reville, 10. 
Roberts, note, 18. 
Romanes, 199. 
Ross, note, 19, 134. 
Rowland, note, 50. 
Royce, note, 49. 

Sabatier, note, 44, 271. 

Sabbath, 58, 116, 119, 120. 

Sadducees, note, 121. 

Salmon, 12. 

Sanday, note, 9, 10, 12, 51, 91. 

Sayings of Jesus, The, Harnack, 
note, 12, 29, 31, 55, 65, 87, 88, 
90, 191, 192, 194, 268. 

Schmidt, note, 49, 130, 275. 

Schmiedel, 8, 10, n, 13, 33-52, 57, 
85, 87, 113, 268; Jesus in 
Modern Criticism, note, 10, 15, 
3 2 > 33, 37, 39, 46; inferences 
from "foundation-pillars," 46. 

Scott, note, 31. 

Scudder, note, 131. 

Self-control, 214. 

Self-reverence, 249. 

Self-sacrifice, law of, 75; demand 
for, 102; motives to, 103; 
modern need of, 129. 

Sermon on the Mount, 8, 20, 43; 
Gore on, note, 67, 242; Votaw 



on, 133; as a whole, 191-203; 
outline of, 195-196; Adeney 
on, note, 194; Bacon on, 194, 
200; Jesus' discoveries in, 196, 
200; the Beatitudes, 232-266; 
motives to living, 255 ff.; con- 
clusion on, 267 ff. 

Sermons for the New Life, Bush- 
nell, note, 20, 201. 

Service, law of, 70; demand for, 

135- 
Seth, James, note, 66. 
Shairp, note, 78. 
Sham, 68. 

Sharing good, law of, 75, 83. 
Sharman, note, 63. 
Silanus the Christian, Abbott, 

note, 78. 
Sin, eternal, 38. 
Smith, D., note, 102, 127. 
Smith, G. A., note, 63. 
Social Morality, Maurice, note, 

I3 1 - 
Social Teaching of Jesus, Mathews, 

note, 65, 69, 139, 142, 255. 
Sources of our Knowledge of the 

Teaching of Jesus, Wernle, 

note, 12. 
Sources of teaching of Jesus, 8; 

Sanday on, 9; Wright on, 9. 
Spirit of Democracy, The, Dole, 

note, 78. 
Stalker, note, 20. 
Stanton, note, 9. 
State, duty to the, 141. 
Stevens, note, 51, 66, 275. 
Stewart, 197. 
Strong, note, 16, 201. 
Studies in the Life of Christ, 

Fairbairn, note, 51. 
Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, 

Shairp, note, 78. 
Studies in the Portrait of Christ, 

Matheson, note, 41, 156. 
Studies in the Teaching of Jesus 

and his Apostles, Bosworth, 

note, 186. 
Studies in the Teaching of Our 



INDEX 



287 



Lord, Swete, note, 50, 51, 152, 

i54. 
Swete, note, 50, 51, 152, 154. 
Synoptic Gospels, 10, 113. 

Talents, parable of, 106. 

Talmud, 60. 

Teaching of Jesus, see contents; 
historical interpretation of, 3; 
psychological interpretation of, 
3 ; application of, 5 ; criteria of, 
8; limitation of, 11, 17; ethical 
and religious, 17, 50; eschato- 
logical, 20, 62; in Luke, 21-28; 
amount and permanence of the 
ethical, 28; on wonder-working, 
40; on inwardness of the reli- 
gious life, 40, 41, 49, 73, 81, 83, 
97,126; new and revolutionary, 
48, 116; supremacy of ethical 
and simply religious, 48; on 
integrity of life, 49; reverence 
for the person, 50, 76; in con- 
trast to teaching of his times, 50 ; 
Bartlet on, 50, 63, 267; demand 
for compassion, 5 1 ; on Sabbath, 
58, 116, 119, 120; uselessness 
of "hoarding," 58; asceticism, 
66, 101, 137; contagion of the 
good, 68, 77; marriage, 69, 137; 
service, 70; love, 73, 78; candor, 
84; watchfulness, 77, 82, 85; 
pharisaic spirit, 94 ; traditional- 
ism, 98, 124; self-sacrifice, 102; 
earnestness of life, 105; fast- 
ing, 116; rejoicing sonship, 116; 
social applications of, 133; am- 
bition, 134; the child, 135; 
warning judgment, 146; mercy, 
146, 210; humility, 146, 214; for- 
giveness, 146 ; holiness, 162 ; cov- 
etousness, 174; meekness, 208; 
purity, 210; unity of , 270, 273. 

Teaching of Jesus, The, Horton, 
note, 3, 19; Ross, note, 19, 134; 
Stevens, note, 51, 66; Wendt, 
note, 50, 55, 197, 200, 256, 257, 
270, 271, 275. 



Temptation, narrative of the, 91. 

Temptations, 247. 

Theology of the New Testament, 

The, Stevens, note, 66, 275. 
Tholuck, note, 206, 208. 
Thomas, 209. 
Tolerance, 136, 161. 
Tolstoy, 6, 157; note, 130. 
Traditionalism, 98, 121, 124. 
Training of the Twelve, The, 

Bruce, note, 41, 51. 
Truth, emphasis on, 29. 

Ungirt life, 176. 

Unity of life, 80, 234, 255, 263. 

Urmarcus, 9. 

Ultimate problem, The, 232. 

Use, law of, 74, 82. 

Utterance, law of, 76. 

Von Schrenk, note, 275. 

Von Soden, note, 88. 

Votaw, note, 133, 19T, 192, 193, 

194, 196, 197, 207, 208, 217, 

218, 265. 

Warning, 146, 154, 173. 

Watchfulness, law of, 77, 82. 

Wealth, 138, 183. 

Weiss, B., 10. 

Weiss, J., note, 17, 266. 

Wellhausen, 10, 88, 197. 

Wendt, 10; note, 50, 55, 197, 200, 
256, 257, 270, 271, 275. 

Wernle, 10, note, 12, 55, 88, 152. 

What is Christianity? Harnack, 
note, 41, 50, 51, 62, 65, 81, 133, 
134, 197, 201, 255, 257, 275. 

White, note, 9. 

Willia, note, 50. 

Williams, note, 68. 

World's code, 216. 

World as the Subject of Redemp- 
tion, The, Fremantle, note, 131. 

Wright, 9, 10, 12; note, 152. 

Wundt, note, 197. 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFER- 
ENCES 



Matt. 4 


•4 




90 


Matt. 5 


■3 2 






68, 201 


4 


■7 




90 


5 


■ 3^-37 






238, 260 


4 


. IO 




90 


5 


: 34 






200 


5 


1-48 




196 


5 


: 34-36 






261, 263 


5 


3-4 




213 


5 


= 37 




201 


, 202, 235, 


5 


3-12 




200, 201 










255, 262 


5 


3-16 




195, 201 


5 


: 38-42 






263 


5 


5-12 




213 


5 


: 38-48 






239 


5 


8 




201 


5 


^39 






200 


5 


9 




249. 2 55 


5 


: 39-42 




201 


202, 241, 


5 


1 3 




200 








253 


, 255, 264 


5 


16 




249, 2 5S 


5 


:44 






200, 244 


5 


17 


200, 


238, 241 


5 


: 44-47 






202, 257 


5 


17-20 




256 


5 


: 44-48 




201, 


249, 253, 


5 


17-48 


195, 


200, 202 










255, 265 


5 


17-7 : 27 




195 


5 


:45 






201, 202 


5 


18 


238, 


241, 255 


5 


:47 






244 


5 


18-19 




193, 201 


5 


: 4 8 




201 


235, 255 


5 


: 19 


234, 


241, 255 


6 


• 1 


200, 


202, 


235, 239, 


5 


20 




23 8 , 257 








249 


255, 256 


5 


21-22 




241 


6 


i-34 






196, 202 


5 


21-26 




238 


6 


2 






200 


5 


21-42 




233, 257 


6 


2-34 






256 


5 


21-48 




256 


6 


4 


201, 


202, 


235, 239, 


5 


22 


200, 


201, 234, 
255,257 


6 


5-21 


249 


253, 


255, 256 
200 


5 


22-24 




202, 244 


6 


6 


201, 


202, 


235, 239, 


5 


23-24 


200, 


249, 251, 
257, 265 


6 


7 


249 


253, 


255, 256 
200, 256 


5 


25-26 




192 


6 


8 






249, 255 


5 


26 


201, 


234, 255 


6 


9 






255 


5 


27-30 




238 


6 


9-13 






200, 249, 


5 


28 


200, 


201, 255 










253, 255 


5 


28-30 




258 


6 


14 




249, 


250,251, 


5 


29-30 


200, 


201, 235, 










255,265 








255 


6 


15 




249, 


250,251, 


5 


3^~3 2 

u 


192, 


193, 200 
2* 


59 








255,265 



290 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



Matt. 6 : 



6 


• 18 


202, 239 


249, 253, 


Matt. 10 


: 34-39 




104 








255.256 


10 


141 




147, 150 


6 


19-21 




239 


11 


:2-6 




25, 42, 48 


6 


19-34 




202 


11 


12-13 




89, 90 


6 


21 




256 


11 


: 16-19 




90 


6 


22-23 




85 


11 


: 16-27 




89 


6 


22-24 


201 


235, 255 


11 


: 20-24 




90 


6 


25 




200 


11 


: 25-27 




90 


6 


2 5-34 


200, 250 


,253, 2 55 


11 


:28 




35, 45, 49 


7 


i-5 




196 


12 


••7 


146 


J47, 150 


7 


1-6 




258 


12 


: 11-12 


146, 


147, 1 5° 


7 


1-12 




233 


12 


= 25 




89 


7 


1-14 




201 


12 


: 27-30 




89 


7 


1-27 




196, 201 


12 


: 32 3 2 , 


34, 37, 47, 89 


7 


3 




257 


12 


: 33 




89 


7 


3-5 




244 


12 


: 36-37 




146, 150 


7 


4 




257 


12 


= 38-45 




89 


7 


5 


2° T , 235, 


255, 257 


12 


:40 




40 


7 


6 




192, 249 


J 3 


10 




120 


7 


6-27 




196 


*3 


16-17 




89, 90 


7 


7-1 1 


192, 200, 


202, 249 


*3 


31-33 




89 


7 


12 200, 201, 


235, 245, 


13 


51-52 




145, !5° 








255, 257 


15 


J 3 


145, 


146, 149 


7 


13 


20I, 


235, 255 


IS 


14 


89, 9°, 99 


7 


13-27 




273 


16 


5-12 


33, 42, 48 


7 : 


14 


20I, 


235,239, 


17 


20 




89, 90 








255,256 


18 


3-4 


145, 


146, 150 


7: 


20-27 




200 


18 


7 




89, 90 


7 •• 


21 




256 


18 


10 145, 


146, 


150, 151 


7 : 


21-23 




239 


18 


12 


89 


, 90, 100 


7 : 


22-23 




192 


18 


13 


89 


, 90, 100 


7 = 


24 




256 


18 


14 i45, 


146, 


150, 151 


7: 


29 


35, 42 


, 48, 200 


18 


15 


89 


, 90, 100 


8: 


19-22 




89, 90 


18 


21 


89 


, 90, 100 


9 : 


37-38 




89, 90 


18: 


22 


89 


, 90, 100 


10 


= 7 




89 


18: 


23-25 




145, 147, 


10 


: 10 




89 








15°, 151 


10 


: 12 




89 


19 : 


3-9 




68 


10 


: 13 




89 


19 : 


12 




145, J 49 


10 


: i5 




89 


19 : 


28 




89 


10 


: 16 


89, 


102, 145, 


20 : 


i-i5 


145, 


146, 149 








147, I 5° 


21 : 


16 




145, 150 


10 


: 16-19 




101 


21 : 


28-31 




145, 1 5° 


10 


: 24-25 




103 


21 : 


31-32 




151 


10 


: 24-39 




90 


21 : 


32 




89, 90 


10 


: 24-40 




89 


22 : 


2-1 1 


89 


, 9°, io 5 


10 


: 26-33 




103 


22 : 


40 146, 


147, 


149, I 5° 


10 


: 32-33 




129 | 


23: 


2-3 




146, 150 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



291 



Matt. 23 : 3 




149 


Mark 3 : 33-35 


112 


23 =4 




89, 9°, 95 


4 : i-34 


109 


23 : 5 




146, 149 


4 = 3~9 


54, 112 


23 : 7-10 




146, 150 


4 : 9 -11 


120 


23 : 12 




89, 9°. 95 


4 : 11-20 


112 


23 = *3 


89, 


9°, 95, 96 


4: 21 


52,58 


23 : 15-22 




146, 149 


4 : 21-25 


112 


23:23 


89, 


9°, 95, 96 


4 : 22 


52, 59 


23 ■ 24 


142 


, 146, 149 


4 : 22-24 


120 


23 :2 5 




97 


4: 23 


52, 59 


23 : 25-36 




9°, 95 


4:24 


53 


23 : 25-39 




89 


4:24b 


59 


23 :27 




97,98 


4:25 


53, 61 


23 : 2 8 




149 


4 : 26-29 


113, 120 


23 : 29-31 




98 


4 : 30-32 


53, 62, 112 


23 ■ 32-33 




146, 149 


4 = 33-34 


120 


24 : 26-28 




89 


6:4 


55, "2 


24 : 37-41 




89 


6:5-6 


35, 4i, 47 


24 : 43-5 r 




89 


6:8-11 


112 


25 : 1-13 


146 


, 147, x 49 


6 : 10 


64 


25 : 13-46 


146 


, 147, 149 


6 : io-n 


53 


25 : 14-3° 




89, 90 


6: 34 


35, 44, 48 


25 : 31-46 




150, 160 


7 = 1-23 


121, 124 


Mark 1 : 14-4 : 34 




108 


7:1-9:1 


109 


1 : 14-15 




108 


7 : 6-15 


112 


1 : 15-17 




112 


7 : 14-23 


114 


1 :i4 




118 


7 = l8 -23 


112 


1 :i5 




114 


8 : n-13 


125 


1:17 




108 


8: 12 


34, 40, 47, "2 


1:38 


112 


114, 115 


8: 12b 


55 


2 : 17 108, 112 


114, 115 


8:15 


55, 125 


2 : 19-22 




112 


8 : 17-21 


112 


2 : 19-3 : 6 




108 


8:34 


53, 64, 112 


2 : 22 




118 


8 : 35-36 


112, 127 


2 : 23-3 : 6 




119 


8 : 35-37 


113, IJ 4 


2 : 25-28 




112 


8 : 37-38 


112 


2 : 27 




113, IJ 9 


9 : 30-50 


108 


3 = 2-6 




58 


9 : 33-37 


134 


3 : 4 52, 5 8 , II2 , 119 


9 = 35-36 


112 


3:6 




120 


9 : 36-37 


135 


3:21 




34, 35, 46 


9 : 37 


112 


3 : 22-26 




55 


9 : 38-41 


136 


3 : 22-30 




108 


9 : 39-5o 


112 


3 = 23-29 




112 


9 '-42 


53,66 


3:27 




55 


9 : 43-48 


53,66 


3 : 28-30 




55 


9:49 


113, 114, 127 


3 = 3i-34 




55 


9 : 5oa 


67 


3 : 3i-35 


34, 35. 46, 109 


9*-5° 


54 



292 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



Mark 9 : 50b 


113. ii4, 


127 


Luke 6 : 37-45 




30 


10 : i-ii : 33 




no 


6 : 43-49 




196 


10 : 2-9 




112 


6 : 46-49 




30 


10:5 




137 


7 : 36-50 


30 


156 


10 : 7-9 




*37 


7 = 39 




157 


10 : 11-12 


54, 68, 


112 


7 : 40-50 




152 


10 : 13-16 




135 


7 = 47 




158 


10 : 14-15 


112, 


136 


7 =48 




158 


10 : 17-31 




138 


7 :5o 




158 


10 : 18 


35, 36, 46 


9 : 18-27 




30 


10 : 18-19 




112 


9 : 49-5o 




3° 


10 : 23-24 




139 


9:57 




3° 


10 : 23-25 




112 


9 : 62 


30, 153, 


154 


10 : 27 




112 


10 : 25-37 




30 


10 : 29-30 




140 


10 : 28-37 




153 


10 : 29-31 




112 


11 : 14-23 




29 


10 : 35-45 




1 34 


n : 14-52 




24 


10 : 38-40 




112 


n : 24-26 




30 


10 : 42-45 


54, 7°, 


112 


n 129-30 




40 


11 : 22-23 




55 


11 : 29-32 




29 


11 : 24 




55 


11 : 33-36 




30 


11 : 25 




55 


11 =44 




97 


11 : 29-30 




40 


12 : 1-12 




29 


12 : 1-44 




in 


12 : 13-21 




30 


12 : 15-17 




112 


12 : 14-21 


153, 


173 


12 : 17 




141 


12 : 35-36 




176 


12 : 29-31 


112, 113, 


131 


12 : 35-38 




153 


12 : 32-34a 




54 


12 : 35-48 




175 


12 ;34 




112 


12 : 35-53 




30 


12 : 38-39 


54, 7 


12 :37 




176 


12 : 38-40 




112 


12:38 




176 


12 : 40 




126 


12 : 39-40 




176 


12 :43 




126 


12 : 41-43 




176 


12 : 43-44 




112 


12 : 44 




176 


12 :44 




126 


12 :45 




176 


13 : 11 


54, 7 


12 : 46 




177 


13 : 15-16 




55 


12 : 47-48 


154, 


177 


13 : 21 




55 


12 : 47-50 




i53 


13 -3 2 


34, 3 6 , 46 


12 : 49-50 


154, 174, 


182 


*3 : 33-37 




112 


12 : 49-53 


3°, 


i75 


13 = 34-35 


54, 72 


12 : 54-59 




i75 


J 5 : 34 


34, 3* 


,47 


!3 = i-5 


173, 


i77 


Luke 6 : 20-26 




196 


13 = 2-5 


153, 


154 


6 : 27-36 




3° 


13 : 6-9 30, 


153, 173, 


178 


6 : 27 : 42 




196 


13 : 10-17 




30 


6 .-31 




196 


13 : 15-16 


153, 154, 


171 


6:35 




247 


13 : 18-21 




30 


6 : 37-42 




196 


13 : 22-30 




30 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



293 



Luke 14 : 1-6 


3° 


Luke 


16 : 9 




185 


14:5 


i54, 171 




16 : 10 




183, 186 


14: 7-1 1 


30, 153, 178 




16 : 11 




183, 186 


14 : 11 


179 




16 : 12 




186 


14 : 12-14 


3°, iS3» 




16 : 13 




186 




154, 172, 173 




16 : 14 




183 


14 : 15-24 


30, 184 




16 : 14-15 




*53> i54 


14 : 25-35 


3° 




16: 15 




174 


14 : 28-33 


^2, 153, 




16 : 17-19 




i74 




174, 180 




16 : 18-21 




174 


14:33 


181 




16 : 19 




183 


15:4 


166 




16 : 19-20 




i74 


15:7 


166 




16 : 19-31 


i53, 


174, 187 


15 : 8-10 


161 




17 : 3-4 




100 


15 = 8-32 


153. i6j 




17 : 7-10 


i53, 


174, 182 


15 : 10 


166 




18 : 9-14 




i53 


15 : 22 


166 




18 : 31-34 




3° 


15:28 


169 




19 : 9-10 




i53, iS4 


15:31 


169 




19 : 10 




171 


15 = 3 2 


166, 169 




19 : 11-27 




3° 


16: 1 


183 




21 : 19 


i53, 


i55, 182 


16 : 1-12 


153 




22 : 35-38 




154 


16 : 1-13 


3°t *74 




23 : 24 




i53 


16 : 1-31 


3° 




23 :34 




155 


16:8 


185 


John 


13 : 1-16 




160 


16 : 8-13 


184 











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